


Noah's Hitman

by Derpmaster9000



Category: D.Gray-man, Dragon Ball
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27436366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derpmaster9000/pseuds/Derpmaster9000
Summary: Pardoned from erasure, Hit is sent to the universe of D. Gray Man. How will our badass assassin fair being sent there, starting off with little else besides his memories being intact, as the holy war between the Exorcists and the Millennium Earl continues forth...
Relationships: Hit & Road Kamelot, Hit & Sennen Hakushaku | Millennium Earl
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue

**Noah’s Hitman:**

**Chapter 1: Prologue**

It was over. There was no hope left for Universe 6. After Hit had seen Jiren defeat Goku without much effort he had decided to try and challenge Jiren himself in the hopes that he could eliminate him. Unfortunately, however, that was not what happened. In spite of Hit’s best attempts to take down Jiren nothing seemed to work.

Throughout the fight, Hit had been improving constantly while fighting him and had even managed to catch Jiren by surprise at one point and land a blow which enabled him to use his newest technique, the time cage in order to bind Jiren’s movements to make him easier to defeat. Sadly, this didn’t work as Jiren was able to get out of it, albeit whilst actually struggling to do so.

As soon as Jiren had gotten out he very quickly made swift work of Hit and eliminated him from the tournament of power. As Hit reappeared up on the stands next to his God of Destruction Champa, He immediately hung his head in shame at his inability to defeat the muscle-bound, spandex wearing warrior. Hit was well aware that he was basically Universe 6’s only hope in winning this tournament and saving their universe from annihilation. With his dropout, it was set in stone that Universe 6 would inevitably lose and be erased. Now it was just a waiting game to see how long the rest of his team lasted in there before they got thrown out.

Meanwhile, up in another platform, sat the two omni-kings with their angel supervisor, the Grand Priest standing near them looking down on the events that were going on the tournament following Hit’s elimination.

“Wow! that fight was so cool!” The one on the left, aka the present-timeline version of the pint-sized god cheered.

**“** Yeah, it was! Jiren and Hit were so cool!” His doppelganger, the future-timeline version of Zen’o by the other’s right agreed excitedly.

**“** I loved that time cage thing he did.” The left one remarked with the kind of childish enthusiasm one would expect of a five-year old who’d just seen something explode on television.

**“** I did too!” The other agreed, before his mood seemed to sour. “I don’t like that Hit got eliminated though.”

The main time-line Zen’o nodded. His mood souring as well. “Yeah, me too… I wish Jiren would’ve beat him but left him in the ring like he did with Goku. That way we could have seen more of him!”

“I know! I would’ve loved to see Hit take on that Vegeta guy again in a rematch! That would be so exciting.”

“Yeah, me too! But he got knocked off. Which means we will have to erase him once the rest of his team gets eliminated…”

“Yeah, that’s kinda sad… He is such a cool guy… To just erase someone as interesting as him would be a waste.”

“I know…”

As the conversation between the two Zen’os finished, both having a small air of dejection hanging over them, the Grand Priest, who up till this point had been silently listening to his two lieges conversation, decided to chime in. “You know my dear kings, Hit does not actually have to be erased.”

This statement from the grand priest caused both Zen’os to turn their heads to him and look at the father of all angels with a questioning gaze.

**“** What do you mean Grand Priest?”

“Yeah, yeah, what are you talking about Grand Priest?”

Their responses caused the grand priest to smile. His rulers could be quite cute when they didn’t understand something. Though he would never say it out loud, they really did act like children quite a bit of the time, despite how ancient in age they truly were.

“Well, to elaborate on my previous statement, I believe I should let you know that we don’t have to erase the assassin from Universe 6. In fact, I have an alternative for you both that is much better than just merely erasing him like the rest.”

Now that really got the Zen’os attention! If there really was another way to go about this then they were more than happy to take it.

**“** Really? That’s awesome Grand Priest! So, what did you have in mind?”

“Yeah! What’s the plan chief?”

That last comment from the future Zen’o made the grand priest chuckle. Before this tournament had started Son Goku had managed to get his hands on a device called the Xbox with a game of sorts accompanying it called Halo. Ever since playing it the other Zen’o had taken a liking to the character called Master Chief. Since then, he had made several references towards him. The other Zen’o calling him chief being the most recent one.

“Well, my plan is simple my kings. Instead of erasing him, how about we just _reincarnate_ him in another universe outside our multiverse? You know, give him a second chance at life.”

Upon hearing the Grand Priest’s suggestion, the two Zen’os jumped for joy off of their thrones, which caused the gods of destruction and their angels who couldn’t hear what was being said between the three, but were watching nonetheless, to gain looks of confusion as they were unaware as to why the Zen’os were so excited all of a sudden.

“That’s a great idea Grand Priest! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!” The main time-line Zen’o exclaimed giddily.

The other bobbed his football shaped head in agreement. “Yeah! great idea! Let’s do that then!”

At their words of approval, the Grand Priest smiled. While his lieges may act like they don’t care about the universes and people that they are destroying other than Son Goku, it was quite clear that if you managed to make a big enough impact on them, like the assassin just had done in his final moments in the tournament, then they weren’t without mercy. ”Of course, my kings, there is a small caveat to doing such a thing, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

It took a few seconds for the two child-like gods to figure out what he was referring to. Once they did, both proceeded to pout. The present-timeline Zen’o being the one to speak. “Oh yeah… since he’s getting reincarnated, he’ll lose all of his cool powers…”

“That sucks…” The other remarked downtrodden. “The way he uses his powers is part of what makes him so cool… to have to take that away from him is kinda sad…”

“Sadly my kings, that is the downside to giving him a new lease like this. Once he’s reincarnated, he’ll lose his original body, as you both know, and be rewarded with a new one for his soul. However, the same cannot be said for his memories. Those can pass on with him at least, should he choose to keep them.” He informed.

“I guess so…” The future version conceded.

“Yeah… you’re right…” The present version added. “I still don’t want to erase him though… so, I’ll go with sending him off.” The other version nodded in agreement at his other self’s conclusion.

The smile on the Grand Priest’s face widened a little. “Well then my kings, should I inform the assassin of his new fate or should I leave it as a surprise?”

“Inform him please.” They both replied in unison.

“As you wish, my lords.”

With this done, the Grand Priest used his telepathy to contact Hit from his mind so that only he would hear this.

Back on the benches, the assassin had not moved an inch since he had put his head down in shame. Hit now had his eyes closed with a solemn look on his face that showed he was willing to accept the fate that he saw as inevitable. This was of course until he heard a familiar voice in his head.

_“Good day assassin, I hope you are doing well.”_

The sound of this voice caused Hit to poke out one of his eyes and look up at the Omni-kings floating podium with surprise. He knew that voice… It was the voice of… the Grand Priest… But, why was he communicating with him?

_“Ahh, I see you’ve noticed already that I’m the one speaking to you. Not bad assassin of Universe 6, not bad at all.”_

Not understanding why he was being contacted like this, the millennium old hitman asked, _“If I may, Grand Priest, why are you speaking with me?”_

_“Well it’s simple actually. My lords have decided to give you a second chance in another world rather than simply erase you along with the rest of Universe 6.”_

Upon hearing out what the Grand Priest was communicating to him, Hit’s other eye shot open as both his eyes widened considerably from this new information.

_“Oh ho, I can see your shocked face from all the way up here. I have to say, that particular look on your face is quite amusing.”_

Hit ignored what the Grand Priest just said, knowing he was messing with him, and raised his head up to meet the Grand Priest eye to eye for the first time since this telepathic talk began. _“Are you serious? I must say, that is a pleasant surprise. May I ask why I am being pardoned from erasure unlike the rest of my universe?”_

At Hit’s question, the Grand Priest had to chuckle a little harder. It would be amusing to see how the assassin would react to the reason behind him being let off. _“That’s easy to answer. In the kings own words, ‘He is such a cool guy, to just erase someone as interesting as him would be a waste’.”_

This answer that he received was something that Hit was not expecting. To say the legendary hitman had a look of complete disbelief etched on his face from the Grand Priest’s reply would be an understatement. In fact, it sounded so absurd that he couldn’t help but question its validity. “ _Grand Priest, is that really the reason? I may not know Zen’o at all, but I feel that there_ has _to be more to it than just that. Forgive me for saying this, but the idea of them letting me live because I looked cool to them sounds absurd.”_

Up on the podium, the angel nodded sagely. _“I guess it would sound absurd given how little you know of the omni-kings. However, I must inform you that the two kings, as you probably observed yourself from their interactions with others, are rather childish despite their age. Believe me when I tell you, because of the childish way that they go about doing things and thinking about things means that once they have decided on something, it will be done no matter what.”_

_“I see… so if I’m to be spared, where will I be going? Will I be working under you or be sent to one of the surviving universes?”_

_“Neither. The omni-kings and I have decided to send you to a universe completely separate from this multiverse.”_

Knowing that with their ludicrous power something like that was easy, Hit hummed inwardly in acknowledgement. _“I see… well if that’s the case, then when will I be sent to this other universe?”_

Back up on the podium, the father of all angels smirked at the assassin’s answer, seeing him already latching on to the alternative. Not a surprise really, considering his only other fate would be erasure. _“You will be sent there once your team has been eliminated and are about to be erased.”_

As soon as the Grand Priest gave his reply, he cut off the telepathic link with Hit’s mind and returned his attention to the Zen’os.

_“_ My kings, I have informed the assassin of his new fate.”

This news made both Zen’os happy as they nodded their approval whilst smiling ear to ear like giddy children.

“Now we just have to wait for the rest of Universe 6 to be eliminated.”

Future Zen’o hummed in agreement. “Mhmm! let’s wait!”

Roughly 8 minutes following their conversation, the rest of Universe 6’s team had been eliminated. Universe 2 had been as well, though they didn’t really matter. Although it seemed as if the Universe 6 Saiyans, along with the rest of the team had accepted their fate and didn’t seem to care anymore, if the bull headed Saiyan known as Caulifla chasing those two Namekians around without a care in the world was any indication.

With all their members eliminated the Grand Priest decided now to chime in. “All members of Universe 6 and Universe 2 have dropped out. Therefore, they shall both be erased!”

Universe 2 was the first to be erased as the white aura that came around them before erasure was now engulfing all of Universe 6 except their angel Vados who was exempt.

As Universe 6, minus Hit, were giving their final send-off mainly towards Universe 7, the Grand Priest decided to contact Hit through telepathy again, for what would likely be the last time he along with anyone in this multiverse ever spoke to him again.

_“So Hit, are you ready?”_

_“Yeah, I guess.”_ The purple-skinned alien shrugged.

_“That’s good to hear. However, I feel I should give you a forewarning before you are transported.”_

_“About what?”_

_“Once you are transported to this new world, I regret to inform you that your current body will be no more, as your soul will be reincarnated into a new body. In addition to this, unfortunately because of the transfer, you will lose all of your powers.”_

That statement took Hit off-guard. He was losing all his powers? The powers and abilities he’d worked on and held for a millennium were going to be stripped from him? That… was not good news.

He should’ve known there’d be a catch. There always was. Such a pardon never came free, after everything he’d seen and witnessed throughout the cosmos in his many years alive, he should’ve known it wouldn’t be a simple affair. Still, it wasn’t the end of the world. While losing what he’d spend many of his years busting his ass for was more than a little annoying for his prideful side, If losing his powers was the price he paid to escape his current fate of imminent doom, he was still readily on board. He’d take a wounded pride over utter annihilation any day of the week. “ _I understand. Those terms are acceptable._ _Anything else I should know about Grand Priest? Or is that all?_ ”

_“Well, since you asked so kindly, I’ll let you know that should you choose to right now, you will be allowed to keep your memories of this lifetime at least, once you crossover.”_

He was allowed to keep his memories if he wished? That was a no-brainer. “ _I’d like to keep my memories intact._ ” That was all that needed to be said there. Though he may no longer have the skills, abilities or power that he once wielded once he crossed over, at the very least, he’d be able to remember the experiences he’d had, and the people he’d met that had earned his respect. Like Son Goku, and begrudgingly, the very man who’d put him in this situation to begin with, _Jiren,_ among others.

The Grand Priest nodded understandably at the ancient assassin’s reply, having known he’d choose to keep them from the start. _“Very well then. They shall be kept intact, as you wish. That is all Hit. Now if I were you, I’d get ready, as its about to happen.”_

Hit nodded his head at that as the Zen’os closed their glowing hands together. Just like that Universe 6 was erased on this spot, with its legendary assassin disappearing to the great beyond.

_19 th century England… _

“ _Ugh… where am I?_ ” Thought Hit, feeling as though his head had been split open, as he slowly began to open his eyes. Blearily, he tried to look around, but found it too dark to see anything. _“What is this place…?”_

In most situations like this, anyone else would start to panic or show some form of anxiety, but Hit had been around long enough to know how to temper such an emotion before it could fester. Instead, he made to try and move his limbs to try and get some feeling into what he would guess was his new body. Though they gave him some trouble, he found himself able to move his arms and legs after exerting some effort. Once he did, he found his hands and feet touching up against a surface within the dark, one that felt rather moist. The surface being something that felt familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was straight away.

“Th… it… mi… eep… shing…” A voice called out very close to him, snapping Hit to attention.

“ _Who’s there?_ ” Though he was normally the silent type given his former profession, Hit tried to call out to the voice, only to find himself incapable of doing so, as little more than a gargled noise escaped him. He narrowed his eyes at this. Did something go wrong during the reincarnation? Had he crossed over without the ability to speak as well? The Grand Priest never warned him of this…

This time, Hit heard a scream. One that unlike the voice from before, came out clear and distinct. It was that of a woman who sounded in deep distress. Though wasn’t really his business, he could note the intensely pained inflection in her voice. “ _What is going on out there…?_ ”

“Tha… it…do… ood…” Hit’s brow furrowed. There was that other voice again. Distinctly male, and just like before, whatever he said was scrambled. His ears barely picking the broken words that came out, as though he were trying to listen to a television full of static.

Suddenly, Hit felt some force being applied to him. Nothing actually harmful, more like the feeling of being _pushed_ downwards. It was unfortunate that he no longer had the use of his ki, otherwise he would’ve immediately sensed for any sort of hostile intent. Though whatever was trying to force him down may not feel hostile, he had learned that you could never be fully sure about such things, and that you always had to remain on-guard to a certain extent.

Still, he felt his body get pushed down further, and whatever surface was around him began to become more restrictive. Eventually, he felt wherever he was stretch out and expand to try and accommodate him. Pressing all over his body as he slowly went down further. For some reason though, he didn’t have any real trouble breathing despite the enclosed space, which was starting to feel like some weird kind of tube trying to force him out the other end.

Using his nose, which was scrunched up against the surface, he got a whiff of where he might be. The smell assaulting his nostrils with a bizarre odour that he’d never smelt before in his original body. And yet, for some odd reason, it came off smelling familiar at the same time. He wasn’t even sure what to make of such a contradictory feeling.

“That’s it… just a little more… I can almost see the head.” Came the male voice for the third time, only this time it came out far clearer. It was followed by yet another scream from the woman, who sounded lie she was in complete agony.

“ _The head? Who’s head? Why’s he telling the woman to go a little more?_ ” Whatever he was telling her to do was clearly putting her in serious pain, which had him wondering more than ever what it could be. Moreover, it had him wondering yet again where in the hell the Grand Priest had sent him-

“Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!?” The scream of the woman cut off his thought, reverberating through his ears as within that moment, he felt his head come out of whatever tube he was in, only for his eyes to be assaulting by a blindingly bright, white light. Forcing him to shut his eyes shut immediately lest they be scorched.

“That’s it! Well done miss! Just one last push now, and you’re done!”

“Hyyyyaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

In that moment, Hit felt his arms be freed, followed by his torso as a pair of hands grabbed under his arms pits, before pulling the rest of him out of the tube. Once he felt his body freed, the luke warm air of his new location biting off his skin and oddly enough being held by someone, Hit slowly opened his eyes again, as he steadily adjusted to the light entering his retinas. Once they adjusted, he found himself looking over a woman laid out on a bed. Dressed in a hospital gown with chestnut brown hair that fell down to her lower back, with several strands framing her forehead and sticking to it as sweat poured off it. The woman, who was breathing heavily now, her youthful, heart shaped face rising and falling alongside her chest with every breath she took. Her eyes opening as she looked back at him, her ruby red pools staring into his, being a lighter shade than his own eye colour had been. Through the heavy breathing, the woman seemed to smile at him, in the kind of way only a mother could to their young.

Wait… she was giving _him_ that look…

No… couldn’t be…

Cautiously looking down, Hit saw the woman had her legs spread wide open, bent at the knee, with her womanhood exposed and stretched between her legs to bastardising proportions, as something red that seemed to protrude out of it, and was more than likely connected to him was cut off at the seams.

Focusing in on the thing that proceeded to flop to the floor, he inwardly paled as he recognised what it was…

An umbilical cord…

_“You’ve got to be kidding me…”_ Hit thought to himself in utter disbelief as the truth of what was going on hit him like a ton of bricks…

“Congratulations miss Lyra, you’ve got yourself a healthy baby boy!” The male voice, revealed to that of a doctor, exclaimed with a mixture of joy and relief.

**And cut!**

**Well now, I’ve been meaning to get this crossover started for some time now. For those of you who don’t know, I’m quite the D. Gray man fan, as it’s the first shounen anime I ever watched/read. For some time now, I’ve wanted to make my own crossover between these two series with Hit as my main character. Given the title, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out what’s going to happen to our resident badass hitman in the near future of this fic. I could’ve picked a more ambiguous title to make it more of a guessing game as to what’ll happen to him in the world of exorcists, akuma, noah, and the millennium earl himself, but to be honest, I believe the title just sounds right to me.**

**Now, as for the beginning and why it’s mostly taken from the starting chapter of my other fic involving Hit going to the Sekirei universe, I’ll be honest. I kinda got lazy, and didn’t want to come up with a new bit for the start, as I felt it does it’s job of setting up what happens decently enough.**

**For those of you who are familiar with my amateurish work, you’ll know I’m for the most part, a fanservice/smut writer. This story will be different from the others, as I intend to tone down the fanservice and smut element greatly in this fic. That doesn’t mean it won’t be here in a small spurt or two on the odd occasion, Like say for a humorous comedy scene, or one that involves a particular location or something that calls for it to a degree, but for the most part, it will be absent here.**


	2. Things never go smoothly.

**Noah’s Hitman:**

**Chapter 2: Things never go smoothly.**

There had been a number of things Hit had anticipated about his reincarnation when it was given to him by the Grand Priest and the two Zen’os. Things like, where he would be, what his new body would be like, and what he may do with his new life now that his previous one as Universe six’s most infamous assassin was over.

The last thing he’d been expecting, and perhaps that fault laid more on him than anyone else, was being reborn _literally_ from his new mother’s womb as a foetus.

_That_ had been jarring, to say the least. Made more awkward by the way his new mother had taken him in her arms once he’d been wrapped up in a blanket, and cuddled him into her chest with a warm, motherly smile.

The doctor seemed to be rather surprised that he didn’t cry. Rather, he seemed to be amazed by how quiet he had been, all whilst his mother cooed to him and treated him like any loving mother would their baby. Showering him, even in her weakened state after child-birth with a copious amount of maternal affection. 

It would’ve been a small mercy if the rest of that day had gone by faster. Unfortunately for Hit, fate seemed to deem it necessary to draw out the day of his birth to agonising proportions from his perspective. With his mother having to wait in the hospital until the next day to fully recover from the birth, and make sure he and she were healthy. Meaning he had to deal with the woman’s full attention focused on doting him.

This probably would’ve been nice if he had the mentality of a small child or an actual _baby_ that held little to no self-awareness rather than a fully grown adult, who’d lived for over a thousand years with most of them being spent as a professional hitman. As it stood right at that moment, that was quite possibly the most embarrassing and downright awkward experience he’d ever had.

Sufficed to say, he was glad when that day ended, and she was able to leave the hospital. Granted, it didn’t stop her from constantly cooing and doting on him, making a bunch of cringeworthy noises at him because in her own words, he was just ‘oh so adorable!’. At least it was a little more tolerable after that initial period in the hospital.

That had been about ten years ago today. Hit could only sigh thinking back to his arrival in this world, knowing that if the Grand Priest and the Omni-kings were watching, they’d likely gotten a kick out of watching him react to his predicament.

He shuddered even now to think if they’d been watching him while he was still in diapers. If being born again had been a humiliating experience, then having to deal with the fact that he didn’t have any other choice but to let go in it and literally piss and shit himself until he was old enough for ‘potty training’ was a truly degrading and downright awful period of his new life. He had cringed more in that small time-frame of less than two years more than he ever had in his millennium long life-span in Universe six.

Thankfully, that awful time was past him.

Now a young boy physically, Hit was garbed in a simple white shirt over his diminutive body, accompanied by some cheap brown pants and shoes as he sat on his plain looking bed within his bedroom. A messy main of dark purple hair filling his head, with a few curly bangs framing his temple but not quite reaching his blood-red eyes.

His bedroom was quite small, with his bed being to the side of the room, with the top part of the wooden structure touching off the far wall, whilst the bottom part was barely a few inches from the other wall and the door to his room. A small window being at the centre of the back-wall giving a view to the outside, of which there was nothing of note to look at.

“Harry! Your supper’s ready! You don’t want it getting cold now, do you?” His mother called out teasingly.

Oh yeah, his mother had also chosen to name him Harry of all things. He didn’t particularly dislike the name, although admittedly he did groan at being called it from time to time. Perhaps it was a little childish of him, which was amusing considering he _was_ a child at the moment, but he simply much preferred his old name over that one.

This was his second chance at life though, new life, new name. It was only fair, and he wasn’t about to moan about it, especially since she’d named him that the day after his birth and had been calling him that since before he was capable of speaking properly.

Regardless, he let out a smaller sigh this time as he obliged his mother’s wishes, getting off his bed and making his way out of his room.

Trekking his way through the hallway to the dining area, a room with pasty walls about three times the size of his room, with a rectangular wooden table near the centre big enough for about four people. His mother was laying out the food as he came in, which looked to be a bowl of hot soup with some vegetables and meat in it. There was already someone sat there before him. A man wearing long brown pants held up by a belt of the same colour, and a button-up grey shirt with a collar pulled down over a tie wrapped around his neck and dangling from his chest. Face obscured by the newspaper he was reading at the table, with only a crop of dark-brown hair that was progressively turning grey all around showing.

Right as he got close to the table though, the man spoke. His voice sounding gruff and gravely, like he’d just shovelled down a pile of dust beforehand. “Have a good day at school, boy?”

“I guess so.” Hit shrugged, answering his father of this world evenly.

That was another thing, he supposed. Since he was now a kid again, he of course had to be sent off to a public school during the day. Which, given his intellect and experience, he found to be the easiest thing he’d ever had to do.

“Any homework?” The man asked. Words coming out almost in a wheeze.

“No sir.” Hit replied respectively.

“Good.” The man sighed, closing his newspaper up and placing beside his soup bowl. Showing his rugged, middle-aged, pale face that seemed rather sickly. His coal-black eyes squaring down on his own supper, a bowl of beef and vegetable stew, with a hint of aggravation. Dark rings underneath his eyes from more than just a lack of sleep. “Now then, I could really do with something nice to eat after the crap I had to deal with today.”

“Something bad happen at work, dear?” Hit’s mother asked with a hint of concern as she sat down with her own plate in between them.

“Just some idiot down in the mines. Stupid bugger didn’t do any work like the rest of us. Most of the time, he just kept staring at us like a weirdo.” The man snorted derisively. Though to them it came off sounding like he’d just inhaled ash. “Moron got us all in trouble for his lack of work, and when the boss came around to give him a piece of his mind, he gave him the most wooden apology I’ve ever heard. The boss thought he was being a smartass about it, so he punished all of _us_ along with him.” By this point, a heavy scowl had come over the man’s face. “Thanks to him, we all have to work overtime tomorrow to get back up to the quota, and we ain’t getting paid for it either. The prick.”

“James! Language!” Hit’s mother admonished with her own pretty frown, covering his ears as if such a word would physically hurt him. “I get that you don’t like it, but our son is with us right now! You shouldn’t be saying stuff like that in front of him!”

Hit almost smiled at the woman’s unplaced worry. He’d heard and seen _far_ worse than that when he was Universe six’s greatest hitman.

His father seemed to be much on the same wavelength as him, if the bemused snort was anything to go by. Even if it did resemble the sound someone made when something unpleasant was rising up their throat. “Oh, come on Lyra. He’s a growing boy. A word like that won’t hurt him.”

The man’s reply only made his mother glare at him. “Don’t give me that! I’ve seen for myself what your friend Robert did to his son with that same attitude! Rudy used to be such a nice boy, and now he’s become a complete potty mouth that’s as rude as they come, just like his father! Have you _heard_ some of the awful things that have come out of that boy’s mouth these days? Its deplorable!”

The woman proceeded to hug the side of his head against her firm bosom as if to comfort him from his father’s ‘scandalous’ speech. Her next words coming out in a hushed whisper as she cradled his head, like he was still a defenceless infant. “It’s okay, honey. I won’t let your father turn you into some hooligan with no manners. You’ll stay a good, _nice_ boy for mommy, won’t you?”

A sweat drop rolled down both father and son’s faces at the woman’s antics.

Still, after dealing with her for over a decade, if there was one thing Hit had learned about his new mom, it’s that it was best not to argue with her. Lest you want to deal with a massive pain in the ass. “Yes, mother.”

“Good boy, Harry.” She said lovingly, as she kissed the top of his head before detaching herself from him and leaning back into her seat with a happy, satisfied smile.

James deadpanned at his wife’s own antics, rolling his eyes at her behaviour. “Jeez Lyra, sometimes I have to won-” A sudden cough from the man cut off whatever he was about to say. His hand quickly coming up to clamp over his lips as several more came out in quick succession. His shoulders hunching over as he hacked into his palm like his lungs were trying to force their way out of him.

The former legendary assassin’s mother was quick to manoeuvre out of her seat and place a hand on the man’s shoulder comfortingly. Any trace of her earlier attitude erased and replaced by a new wash of worry for her husband.

Hit watched on as the man continued to cough violently into his hand for a few more seconds. A sharp look in his eyes as he caught a sizeable mixture of saliva and mucus as black as coal splatter on to the side of his hand, before the man wheezed and ceased his hacking fit for the moment. He then turned his head over to his wife now by his side and gave her an apologetic look.

“Feh! Sorry about that…” He said, already moving his spittle and mucus-coated hand to his pants and wiping it off them. “I’m okay now. It’s alright.”

If it wasn’t for countless years of practise in his old life tempering his emotions to keep a cool head, Hit would’ve scoffed hard at the man’s shoddy attempt at reassurance.

The man was far from okay. Ever since Hit had known him, he had never been in right health. And that was most likely owed exclusively to the coal mines he worked in and had been doing so long before he was reborn into this world.

As Hit had come to find out earlier in his ‘childhood’, there was actually a sizeable age gap between his new parents. A _twenty-year_ age gap to be precise. Turns out, his assessment of his new mother being youthful when he was born was more dead on then he’d initially thought, as she’d turned out to only be, funnily enough, twenty years old when she had him. Whilst his father on the other hand, was already pushing forty at that time, and had prior to his birth, been working inside the very same coal mine he worked in, to this day for almost the same amount of time relative to their gap in age.

In other words, the aging man had been busting his ass off with long hours down in the mine since even his own _wife_ had been in diapers.

Now, Hit wasn’t going to bother touching on how the two had come to be together given all that, as it was none of his business really, but what that alone revealed, was that the now fifty-year-old codger had been slaving away down in what was essentially a damp, dusty-air filled cave near the town they were in for about three whole _decades_ at this point.

As awful as it may sound, he was somewhat surprised his lungs hadn’t given out on him by now with all the damage they’d no doubt suffered from such an environment.

Lyra bit her lip at her sickly husband’s words. Something that Hit had seen on numerous occasions when it involved her husband’s condition, and his tendency to just brush it off. “Are you sure about that, James?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.” The man smiled, trying to up-lift her spirits. “It’s all good, Lyra. Just the usual cough I’ve always had, you know that. And it has yet to slow me down. Let’s just get back to dinner, okay?”

Lyra didn’t respond verbally but did give her husband a nod before sitting down. The look on her face saying it all to the ex-assassin of a long-destroyed universe. A look that told him the man’s cough hadn’t been anywhere near as bad back when they’d first met.

Something which he could believe, considering the man hadn’t been this bad when he’d first been reborn either. His cough was still pretty bad even then, but at least he hadn’t been hacking up what looked like liquidated charcoal like he was now.

The rest of dinner went by in silence after that.

_Late that night…_

Hit’s ten-year-old body twisted and turned underneath his bed covers, wriggling like a worm caught by its tail end and held up in the air. Beads of sweat forming all over his forehead as his lips peeled open to show his teeth ground down hard, a hiss of pain flitting through as it felt like needles were stabbing their way through his cranium and poking into his brain with almost enough power to puncture it like a balloon.

Whilst his eyes were closed, it was as if his mind was being sent elsewhere. Images floating through his head that he hadn’t the slightest idea were coming from. Images of what looked like a time long since passed. Faces of people appeared but were blurred to him. What looked like twelve shadowy figures following another who was in the lead, like they were running away from something. Another image showing a darkness creeping over the foreign land he didn’t recognise, bringing what appeared to be a… a flood with it?

A series of images all but slammed into him after, showing the land be consumed all over, but it all seemed to be from a detached view that looked on at the carnage from above. It was almost as if he could actually _hear_ the countless screams of horror from all the people that were below, but unseen, as they were also consumed by the flood and darkness.

One last image entered his head, of some kind of near ethereal vessel up in the sky, looking down on the proceedings like he had been. Within it, or on top of it, he really couldn’t tell, those same shadowy figures from before watched on as it all transpired.

Though he couldn’t really see their faces, somehow Hit just knew that all the figures were calm for some reason. Inexplicably _calm_ like they’d known this would happen all along. Like it was _always_ meant to happen.

His view somehow changed then, and he found himself looking down below alongside the other shadowy figures, as the figure that stood in lead before them turned away from the spectacle down below, his attention focusing in on them. Hit didn’t know how or why he knew it was a man, considering their features were so obscured it should’ve been impossible to tell, but he just could. The shadowed man raised his arms and stretched them out wide, as if to thank them for being the lucky few who had managed to join him.

But then, the figure honed-in on _him_. The figure didn’t have any eyes, but it felt like he was staring right at him. Though not with any sort of malice or discontent. Rather, it was with… warmth? It was hard to describe, but all Hit could feel from this figure, was a feeling of being welcome. Like the figure _wanted_ him here, just like the others. As if he weren’t just some stranger that had been randomly picked up and happened on this vessel, if one could call it that, by sheer chance.

No. It was as if the figure was telling him something without words. Communicating that whoever they were and wherever this was, that he _belonged_ here with them. That he was no mere stranger, or someone who was just lucky to have survived, but someone who was meant to be here with them.

Like he was part of a family. And that it was time for him to come home.

His eyes snapped open then with a groan. His body lethargically sitting up as the pain subsided from his head. A painful throbbing remaining for the moment in his chest. His lungs burning as if they’d been submerged under water whilst he took breath.

“ _What the hell is wrong with me…? First these damn headaches, and now these weird dreams…_ ”

The former millennium old assassin wasn’t sure if it was something he was coming down with or not, but lately, over the last couple of weeks he’d been having a series of headaches randomly each day. As time passed on, what made them even more annoying, was how they seemed to be getting worse each passing day, and he had no clue as to why. His most recent one in particular had come about while he was at school, and had been particularly aggravating, like a huge migraine on steroids.

It hadn’t ended there though. Last night before this one, he’d had a similar dream to this one, centred around those thirteen shadowy figures. Accompanied by the same pounding headaches that grown worse over time.

In all of his years including his previous life as the sixth universe’s greatest assassin, he’d never had dreams like this before. They felt foreign to him, yet somehow at the same time, they felt familiar. It was a truly bizarre, contradictory feeling. It felt simultaneously like some weird trip of the mind, something alien even to him with all that he’d witnessed in his tenure, and like a… like an old _memory_ would be the best way to put it.

But surely it wasn’t a memory. He wasn’t a braggart or anything, but he had an incredible memory. Even with all that had happened in his long life, he could still remember every important event in vivid detail. From the tournaments he’d competed in when he was young on his previous home world, to the names and faces of every target he’d ever had, to all the places he’d ever been that had caught his eye outside of his work. He could still recall every last bit of information like it had happened yesterday, rather than several hundred years ago in his previous body, with the exception of the tournament between his and Son Goku’s universes, The hit said Saiyan had put on himself just to fight him, and the tournament of power itself.

Whatever that had been, it felt important. Important enough, that he definitely would’ve recalled it happening in his own life before. So then, why in the world did he feel like it was a memory? Why did his chest ache as if he’d forgotten something crucial, and was only just piecing it back together now?

He doubted this was the Grand Priest’s doing, or something that the Zen’os had done for entertainment. The way the Grand Priest had talked to him in his final moments before being reborn, there had been a tone of finality. The head of the angels had made it clear this would be the last time he’d interact in any way with him or the kings of everything.

Rubbing the sweat off his forehead with his arm, Hit was about to lay back down in order to get some proper sleep, or at least try to anyway. However-

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!?” A scream suddenly tore through the walls of the house, almost startling the former hitman. Red eyes widening considerably when he recognised the sound of the voice making it.

“ _Isn’t that my mother of this world? What is she screaming for?_ ” Whatever it was, it sounded distressed. Horrified even.

Swinging the covers over, Hit felt curiosity get the better of him as he got off the bed, still wearing the same clothes from earlier and made his way over to his room’s door. He opened it wide before making his way over to his parents’ bedroom. He came upon the closed door to their room and heard something hit the floor on the other side with a _thud!_ Following that, he could audibly hear someone scrambling along the floor inside, as if trying desperately to crawl away from something.

_“What in the world is going on in there?”_ He thought to himself with a practised calmness that came with centuries of experience. His eyebrows furrowing even more curiously with a hint of concern as he grabbed the knob to the door and turned it.

The door creaked open, and he could see a lone light on in the room lit by a candle. The candle itself being to the right of the bed on top of a drawer sat next to the mattress.

“H-Harry?” He heard a choked whisper, like the person saying it was losing their voice as they spoke. His gaze hovering over to the other end of the room opposite of the light, where his eyes caught sight of his mother huddled up in a corner of the room. Even partially hidden somewhat by the darkness that the candle couldn’t illuminate, he could still make out her paling features. Her skin having turned a startling shade of white, almost like a ghost as her body shook. Her hair a frazzled mess as tears fell from her shell-shocked eyes as she reached out for him. “P-Please… d-don’t come in!... don’t come in any further…” She wept, sounding almost hysterical at this point as her voice lowered to that of a whisper. “Y-Your father he… he…”

Moving his gaze from his mother over to the bed, which he could tell she didn’t want him looking at, Hit stiffened up as he saw exactly why she didn’t want him to see this, given she thought him to be little more than her naïve, young child.

Laid out on the bed, with the flickering flame of the candle illuminating his features, was his father. The man laid out motionless on the bed, with his own features even paler than the woman cowering in the corner. The difference being his lips and chin, which were stained and dripping with that same black gunk he’d coughed up earlier, mouth opened wide as if he’d woke in sudden surprise.

And then there were his eyes… cold and blank looking as they seemed to roll up into his head. A look that he’d seen many times in the old days of his previous universe.

The look of a dead man.

**AND CUT!**

**Well, that’s a way to end it alright! First chapter ends with Hit being ‘born’ and this one ends with his father dying.**

**That got a bit dark, didn’t it? Well, this is mainly a setup chapter, and I can tell you right now the next chapter should be even darker. For those of you who know D. Gray Man well, you can probably guess what’s coming. For those of you who haven’t? Well… it’ll certainly be quite the read, I’ll just say that.**

**Next chapter will be coming out within July and will be significantly longer than these first two chapters. I’ll be going into some real detail in chapter 3, as it will be when this story _really_ starts to kick off.**

**Either way, I’ll see you all then!**


	3. Death and Renewal

**Noah’s Hitman:**

**Chapter 3: Death and Renewal.**

_Two days later…_

The church bells tolled overhead, the loud sounds permeating through the air and travelling all across the small town that Hit had resided in for the past ten years.

It hadn’t taken long for the authorities to show up after his father had been discovered dead. His body having been safely removed from the bed and taken away. No doubt to prepare him for a proper burial.

It hadn’t taken long for them to decide on the cause of the death for the man either. Black Lung Disease, they called it. The effects of inhaling in coal dust from the air over a long period of time having done too much damage to the lungs, which led to them giving out in the middle of the night.

Right now, they were heading to the church inside of a carriage. The man’s funeral was due for today. After they were done here, his coffin would be lowered into the ground to rest, something he knew of quite well as many different races from Universe six back in the day practised something similar.

Well, minus the religious aspect of it all, anyway.

He felt his hand be squeezed by his mother, and if it hadn’t been for how ghostly pale her complexion had become, he was sure her knuckles would’ve turned white from how hard she was gripping his hand, as they sat together inside. Him garbed in a simple dark-brown shirt and pants with some simple, relatively cheap shoes on, while she was garbed in a flowing black dress that reached down to her ankles, with small heels of the same colour worn over her feet.

Outside of the bells ringing, he could hear the woman’s quiet sobs next to him, her eyes ringed red from all the crying she’d done over the last two days. When the shock of her husband being dead had wared off, that was all she’d done since then. She hadn’t eaten or drank anything since then, least not from what he could see, preferring to huddle herself in whatever corner she could find, or if he was close enough, pull him into a deep hug that felt like she was trying to drive the wind out of him. Her tears free flowing down unto his shirt as she buried her face into his small shoulder.

If the ex-assassin was being honest, he hadn’t really known what to do in that situation. Having been a professional killer for so long in his previous life, he was by no means well equipped to comfort someone during their time of grief.

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t made an attempt though, awkwardly patting her back and, in a softer voice than usual, being wary of his mother’s current state, had tried to tell her it was going to be okay.

Of course, he knew it wouldn’t be, given the circumstances, but he really couldn’t think of anything else to say. That is what someone told a loved one when they lost someone important to them, right? He’d never really stayed around long enough during the few funerals he’d attended way back when to find out, as it didn’t really concern him.

Even though on all those occasions he was the one responsible for that person’s death, but that was just business. He was hired for it and did the job. He wasn’t sure what had drawn him to the funerals of his targets, even to this day. Perhaps it had been to pay his final respects? He didn’t have anything against them personally, unlike the ones who’d hired him, so he supposed that maybe it.

“We’re here.” He heard the carriage driver say in a gravelly tone. The horses that had been pulling them along up to now coming to a stop outside.

His mother didn’t say a word to the man, even as he rounded towards the door and opened it allowing the to step out in front of the town’s church, the bells still tolling even now as they got out of the vehicle.

The church itself had an oddly gothic design to it, with pointed spires jutting up towards the sky and painted glass windows that allowed light to pass through them.

“My condolences to you both.” The carriage driver said, unperturbed and unoffended by his mother’s lack of a response to him. The man having no doubt seen people in her state before in the past plenty of times. Given his wrinkled face, he was easily middle-aged, so the former hitman wouldn’t doubt that being the case.

Hit was the only one to look up at the man, garbed in a dark blue suit with a matching, small hat worn over his head. Not a lock of hair to his name as Hit nodded at him in understanding, getting a look of sympathy back from him as his mother began walking forward. Pulling him by the hand as she walked towards the church.

Taking a quick look around, the young-looking boy could see plenty of the townsfolk milling about towards the entrance as well, all of them avoiding his eyes and gazing at his mother’s back as they walked into the building. _“They can’t even look at us…”_ Its as if they thought they were so fragile right now that even _looking_ at them funny would garner a negative reaction.

They needn’t have bothered. The woman clutching his hand was too distraught right now to care what the people around her thought or did, and as for himself? Well, other than the initial surprise at seeing his father’s corpse, he wasn’t really affected at all by what was going on. As callous as that might sound, given it was his own dad of this world that had died, he just didn’t feel anything for his passing. A mixture of him not being emotionally connected to the man in the first place, given he’d never been good with that sort of thing, but also because he was so desensitised to death at this point after all that he’d seen in his previous life, that it just didn’t affect him like it would other people.

Like it clearly affected his mom of this reality.

He didn’t blame her for that. It was clear that unlike him, she’d grown close to the older man, and genuinely loved him just as much as she did him.

As they made their way inside, Hit felt the woman leading him along stiffen up, which brought his gaze over to the cause. The coffin laid out before the altar, no doubt housing the body of his deceased parent within its wooden shell.

Trying to be considerate, Hit squeezed her hand right back with his small hand, seemingly bringing the woman back to reality. Her head tilting as her red eyes glanced down at him, though that was hard to make out given how her frazzled, messy hair obscured a good portion of her features. He could still make out how her lips quivered though, her eyes not only showing how much she’d been crying over the last two days, but also the severe lack of sleep she had as well. What with the bags that had formed under them.

Her face scrunched up then for a brief moment, as if she was about to start bawling her eyes out again. She probably would’ve too, if she had enough tears left to do it.

She led him over to the top row then, bringing them as close to the coffin as she could before sitting down. Her gaze becoming fixated on the wooden box from then on, as more and more people filed into the building. 

Behind the altar, stood a stone-carved statue of the most important person of his mother’s and these people’s religion. Jesus Christ. His arms splayed wide before him, as if welcoming all those coming in with open arms to his sanctuary. The priest wasn’t far away from the statue, clearly getting ready to begin his part in this whole thing.

Hit let out a small sigh, which his mother must’ve misconstrued as a depressed one, as despite her own awful mood, she gave his hand a light squeeze before letting it go and circling her arm around the back of his neck. Holding him closer to her side without looking down at him.

She was seeking comfort, that much was clear, and she believed he was too. He allowed her to think that, even if it wasn’t true, and simply allowed the woman to hug him close, like she’d been doing the last few days. It was the least he could do, and he wasn’t so cold as to deny her even just the semblance that this might be giving her from the depressive atmosphere.

“That poor woman…” Hit heard someone whisper not far away. A distinctly female one, from what his ears could make out.

“I know.” A male voice cut in. “Can’t imagine how she’s going to cope now.”

“Yeah… especially since she’ll have to raise her son on her own…” Another male voice spoke up. His voice sounding sympathetic. Not unlike the carriage driver earlier. “That definitely won’t be easy, especially since she has no way to support them both…”

“ _She’s right here, you know._ ” Hit thought in minor annoyance. Seriously, did these people think they were being discreet? Because none of them were as inconspicuous as they thought they were.

“These things happen I suppose…” A more elderly, female voice piped in. “That girl… she really should’ve known better. Marrying a man almost twice her age who worked in the mines… what was she thinking?”

“Love blinds us all, I guess.” Another woman close to the elder shrugged. Hit could tell they were relatively close as well. Probably on two or three rows done at most. “Rumours have been going on about those two for awhile…”

“Yeah… I’ve heard about those…” Another male voice quipped in, doing his best to be as quiet as possible along with the rest. And like them all, he failed miserably. “Some people think she eloped with him over here after a spat with her family...”

“Couldn’t be.” The old woman piped back in. “That man’s never so much as left town, from what my son has told me. From what I’ve gathered, she travelled here with her parents around a decade ago. I’m not sure why on that, but what I do know if that’s true, is that they left her here not long after.”

“Really?” One of the other women asked, at this point for no other reason than gossip, without a care in the world for the woman they were talking about, who he was damn sure could hear them just as much as he could. “You think he knocked her up, and that’s why they left without her?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Though, again, these are still just rumours at the end of the day.” The elderly woman sighed. “This isn’t really the time for us to be discussing this anyway. We are in the house of God right now. It would behove us to show a little respect for the deceased…”

The others murmured their agreement and Hit almost felt like scoffing at that. After they had already talked behind her back like that in this supposed ‘house of God’ and effectively insulted her character, now they wanted to stop and leave insulting her again for later? “ _Cowards… talking behind someone’s back when they’re in ear shot…_ ” A stone-cold assassin he may have once been, and even now he really wasn’t an emotive person, but shameless and disrespectful he was not. Hell, he was pretty sure even the hardened mob bosses of the criminal underworld back during the old days would’ve had more restraint for their dead enemies than these people did.

It was almost laughable how they were managing to sound empathetic for her plight, whilst also being condescending at the same time for the supposed origins of hers and his dad’s relationship. Like that was any of their business what had gone down between them. Pathetic.

Not even a minute after their prattling came to an end, the priest, garbed in his ceremonial robes coloured red and white stood up to the podium.

Hit effectively zoned out of what the holy man was saying, knowing it would be just a bunch of religious preaching he didn’t care for. While it was going on though, he felt a prickling sensation in his head, which nearly garnered a groan out of him. “ _Great… the headaches are back…_ ”

Since his father had passed, the last two nights had been rather… peculiar. Whilst his mother had struggled and failed to get to sleep herself, understandable given the man’s death was fresh on her mind, and had died right beside her, he hadn’t had too much issue going to sleep at all, even with the recurring headaches which seemed to hurt even more, and he had no clue why.

It was the dreams however, that were getting to him. On the night his father had passed, he had dreamed of a flood of some description, as well as those thirteen figures. The two nights following that had been… he didn’t even know how to put it…

The dreams, which honestly felt more and more like some weird, distant memories, had shown him even more of those bizarre events he’d seen in his first and second dream. He still couldn’t make out any features from the figures, but there was no denying the familiarity he felt towards them. The close kind one could only have with a tight-knit family, which felt even more absurd to him, and only just confirmed to him further that it had nothing to do with his previous life in Universe six. He’d never really had a family there and had essentially been a loner all his life.

But there was something else though. Outside of the screams he could still hear in each one, there really hadn’t been anything else he could hear in those otherworldly dreams, up until the one he’d had last night.

It had gone about just like any other, showing him carnage being wrought on the world, with him now standing side by side with the other twelve figures as one of them. Only this time, at the end of it, he’d heard a name being whispered to him. Not by any of the shadowy figures there, but more from what felt like the very dreamscape around him in his subconscious. A name that had him snapping awake and at attention, despite never having heard it before, but it felt so familiar and important to him. Not like the name of a family member or a friend though… no… when that name was uttered, it felt like _his_ name was being spoken, despite it not being the case.

_“Toraido.”_ Hit thought to himself. The name reverberating in his mind as though it were a lost memory that he’d just recovered from a bout of amnesia. “ _Who in the world is that? Just what exactly are these ‘dreams’ trying to tell me?_ ” He was long past the point of writing them off as just dreams, and knew they all held some kind of purpose, he could feel it in his very soul, but he just didn’t know what it was.

It was all just so confusing… Even after all the things he’d been through, counting his days in the now destroyed universe he once called his home, he’d never felt anything like this. Before, he’d always been able to keep himself ahead of the game, and always knew what he was doing, and what was going on around him, whether it pertained to the criminal underworld, or just everyday life in the cosmos.

Right now, though, for the first time ever… he felt like he was truly out of his depth, without a clue about what was going on. No matter what he pieced together, nothing of what he saw in these dreams made sense to him. All he could do, was get the gist of what was going on, but he had no understanding of the meaning behind them, and nor did he have a clue why those faceless shadows felt as familiar as they did. Like they were his long-lost family that were just waiting for him to come home, which made absolutely no sense to him still, and he thought preposterous given who he was.

It was then, however, that the prickling in his head morphed into something much worse. Hit could feel his eyelids scrunching up as it felt like a chisel was taken to the back of his skull by a hammer. Pain suddenly erupted a hundred-fold from what it had been just a second ago. Like something was trying to burrow its way out of his head again but doing so as slowly and agonising as possible to cause him the most grief. “ _For goodness sake… when are these going to stop…?_ ” It only got worse from there, somehow, as if he’d just tempted fate. Beads of sweat beginning to appear around his temple, as he felt his hand rise up and touch his forehead. A burning sensation coming out of thin air, which to him was like his skin being set on _fire_ from the inside out.

Of all the headaches he’d had up to now, this was undeniably the worst of them. He could feel his teeth grit down, his face creasing up as his fingers dug into his temple. A poor attempt on his part to lessen or at least control the pain in some way, which backfired quick as it only increased in intensity further. “ _Damnit… why does it feel like something’s trying to carve its way out of my skull…?_ ”

His mother must’ve misread his little episode again, as he felt her pull him in just a little closer for a form of added comfort. She might’ve even looked down at him and noticed the droplets of moisture now flowing down his cheeks and mistaken it for tears. He’d let her believe what she wanted. He may have even appreciated the gesture if he didn’t currently feel like writhing in agony on the floor, clutching the front of his cranium as if it were about to burst open!

It persisted longer than any other one previous to it. Dragging out in what might as well have amounted to _torture_ as far as he was concerned. One minute, it felt like it was scalding his flesh, making it sizzle beneath the surface of his sweating skin like it were on a hot grill or worse, placed within a _furnace_ , then the next minute, it was like he was getting _stabbed_ and _scrapped_ from within his skin by a multitude of tiny, razor sharp knives. All of which taking their sweet time with it as well. Nothing that felt like a clean stab through, but more like a butchered attempt where the assailants failed every time to properly puncture his skull but were persistent enough to keep trying over and over again.

Even with all of his discipline from his old life, it didn’t prepare his new body for something so excruciating. Despite his best efforts, a few pained hisses flitted through his grounded teeth as he held himself as firm as possible against the running tide.

Hit wasn’t sure how long it had been when his blitzing headache finally began to subside somewhat, and allow him a reprieve from its oppressive, agonizing hold. His breaths coming out more haggard than they ever had before.

The headache was still there, but it was more like dull throbbing now as it petered off. “ _What in the hell is wrong with this body…? Everything was fine up until recently, and now I can’t stop having these…_ ”

Hit dared to open his eyes a few seconds later, hovering over the casket housing his dead parent, before floating up to the priest by the altar. His ear pricking up as he heard the man proclaim to all in attendance, “And may the soul of James Williams forever rest in peace and find everlasting happiness in the presence of our God who art in heaven. Amen!”

“Amen!” The rest of those gathered around them uttered in unison.

It seemed that the procession was over with, as the priest brought out four young men from the town to pick up the coffin, as all of those seated had to rise up. Not another word was said by the priest as he walked into the back of the church, all while the four men who Hit barely paid any mind to, carried the coffin out of the church.

Hit’s mother of this world rose up as well, albeit shakily, taking him by the hand as she followed the coffin’s path, knowing her husband was about to be buried. The crowd of people around them slowly filed away from their rows as well, forming almost like a small colony of ants behind them as they all came out of the church. There was a graveyard that Hit only just noticed then that was placed right beside the building itself, housing more than its fair share of tombstones for the recently and long-since deceased.

A shallow grave had been dug out somewhere near the centre, making it clear which plot they’d chosen as the quad of men stalked steadily towards it.

Throughout it all, even as they reached the hole in the ground, and prepared to lower the casket in, the once vibrant woman that had become his mother never stopped staring at it. Her gaze unblinking, but eyes welled up to release another fresh bout of tears that never came, because she’d already run out of them by now. That didn’t stop the look of despair permeating in her once jubilant, loving pools of red, which were now a much duller shade, as if the very life had been sapped out of them.

Hit was no expert on any of this, but even he could tell how much she’d truly cared for that man. And now that he was gone, ignoring the dull-aching pains in his head trying to distract him, it was easy to see that a hole had formed inside her heart. Not literally, of course, but it likely felt like it from her perspective.

Once the casket was finally lowered in, the crowd of people formed around them in a semi-circle, and taking a quick glance over, he saw them bowing their heads in some form of respect, though after what he’d just heard in that church from certain people, it was easy to tell most of it was fake. Most, if not all of them, likely here purely out of some form of obligation, since a member of their community had died, and not because they actually knew him personally.

Some of the men in attendance, dressed similarly to his dad had usually been, were most likely his ‘buddies’ from down in the mines. They at least, looked genuine in their stoic, but somewhat sorrowful expressions.

Just then, the former assassin felt the aches in his skull spike once again, but dutifully ignored it this time, as it wasn’t as bad as the preceding one. That wasn’t to say though that it didn’t feel like something wasn’t trying to carve his forehead open like a pumpkin.

His mother let go of his hand nary a second later, bringing it and her other one together, clasping them tightly in a form of prayer. Her soft sobs being heard by all as she remained fixated on her husband’s resting place.

It was about the time where the four men started picking up their shovels left nearby, and shovelled dirt over the coffin to finish the proceeding, that someone stepped up close to the grieving widow. A woman who appeared dressed in a long woollen dress and some woolly hat placing her hands on his mother’s shoulders in an empathetic manner.

“There, there Lyra. He’s in a better place now…” The woman said softly, earnestly believing what she’d just said. She was obviously on more friendly terms with the distraught widow, as she leaned her head into her shoulder without a second thought. Her weeping becoming muffled in the other woman’s shoulder.

Those around them began to disperse less than a minute later, as the four men finished chucking the dirt unto the casket, sealing up it and the shallow hole dug for it in soil.

Hit found himself stepping away from the two women, seeing as his mother now had a shoulder to cry on that wasn’t his. His head all the while pounding like there was a small man inside with a pickaxe just bashing it against his skull. Bringing with it yet another sensation of his flesh somehow feeling it was being carved inside out, slowly and deliberately. Almost like a prisoner slowly trying to chisel their way out of their prison cell’s walls.

The ‘young boy’ found his eyes squinting shut momentarily once again. Yet continuing to steadily strut forward, as if to walk off the searing pain that was engulfing his head. Had he been your average, everyday ten-year-old, he had no doubt he’d be in tears right now, wailing like a toddler that didn’t get their way.

“Such a tragedy.”

Hit found himself stopping at that new, distinctly male voice. His red eyes peeling open as the pain dulled again, only to notice someone standing right in front of him. Either he’d stuck around even as the rest of the crowd left, or he’d only just arrived, and he simply hadn’t noticed.

“A poor, lost soul being separated from their loved one… truly, an _awful_ day indeed.” The man continued. Hit found himself peering up at him in that moment, overcome by an odd bout of curiosity.

He was quite tall, easily standing over six feet, and to say he was dressed oddly for this kind of neighbourhood was putting it lightly. His attire consisting of a tan overcoat with a light purple inner collar, a black and green striped shirt, black trousers, and pitch-black shoes that curled up at the toe. White gloves were worn over his hands, with his left clutching on to a cane that he held lazily by his side, putting nary a hint of weight down on it as the bud pressed into the ground by his side. A silly looking top hat adorning his head that had some eccentric decorations, such as reddish-pink lily flowers along the left side, which were bizarrely shaped like spider now that he got a better look, while the right had a pair of white lilies with long, oval leaves. A few locks of black hair spilt out under the rim of the hat and just above his amber eyes. His face itself appearing middle-aged at first glance, with bags under his eyes not too dissimilar to his mother’s, though notably less puffy and red. A stubble like beard and moustache running along his jawline and above his lips, effectively giving him five-o-clock shadow.

If Hit was being honest, the man almost looked a clown without the makeup on. Like he was on his time off from the circus and had just stumbled his way over here by sheer coincidence.

But the aura he put off on the other hand… and that look in his eyes… it was far from the look of a man who’d just so happened to come across all of this. He may no longer be the hitman he once was, but reborn in a new body or not, it didn’t completely get rid of the instincts that had been ingrained into him, down to his very soul.

It wasn’t just that either, though. What was _really_ starting to set his warning signs off about him, was that he was giving him the _exact_ same vibe he got off those shadowy figures from his dreams. That inescapable, befuddling feeling of familiarity, like he’d just laid eyes on a long-lost family member he hadn’t seen in _ages_.

“Hmm?” The man stopped himself, gazing down as if only just now noticing his presence. A light twinkle entering his amber pools as he smiled down at him. “What’s the matter, young one?” He asked with an out of place, jovial sounding voice that clashed heavily against the atmosphere up to this point. Although, his eyes noticeably gained a small bit of concern once they scrutinised him a bit more. “Dear me, are you alright little man?” He broached softly, his jovial tone receding a bit as he knelt down to eye level with him. “Are you sick, perhaps? You do look quite pale…”

Hit’s eyes narrowed immediately despite the biting pain in his head. This guy… who in the world was he? He’d never met him before a day in his life, this one or the previous. For all pre-tense and purpose he was just some random weirdo that had wandered in to the graveyard at some point during or after the whole affair. And yet as the man looked him over, it was like he was being inspected by an older brother of sorts, and he hadn’t the faintest idea why it felt like that.

“My now… not much of a talker, are you?” The man remarked in slight bemusement over his silence. “I guess it’s to be expected,” He continued, going so far as to rest his free hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner. “I’m guessing that woman up there weeping her heart out is your mother?” He motioned his head over the two women’s way, which Hit strangely felt no issue in nodding his head affirmatively for. “I see… then that means the man who just got buried today was your father… I suppose it’s no wonder you’re not in the mood to talk.” He said, seemingly lacking the self-awareness to know that he was basically a stranger to him, or he should be anyway, and that typically children were taught to not talk with strangers. Something his mother of this world like any worrying mother had tried to ram into his head, not knowing the kind of experiences he’d had before being reborn. Giving him a calm and cautious nature by virtue of what he’d had to deal with on a weekly basis back in the old days, before he’d acquired his time-skip even.

And yet, that confounding feeling of familiarity struck him again. As if whispering in the deepest parts of his subconscious that this clownishly dressed man was no stranger at all. That he should _recognise_ who he was, even though he hadn’t a clue. Something like that should’ve put him on edge, and had he been in any situation like this in Universe six, or hell, even in this new reality he inhabited with anyone else, it would have. But instead, he was feeling a level of ease coming over him, with the exclusion of his aching head, being around the strange man’s presence.

He had no reason to tell this man anything, and quite frankly, he should’ve just shrugged his hand off and walked away without a word being said. But against all rime or reason, and against his usual judgement on just about every level, he spoke. “It’s got nothing to do with him.”

“Oh?” the man blinked, looking somewhat surprised hearing him reply, before a curious gleam entered his gaze. “Then what’s troubling you, if I may?”

That was none of his business. That’s what he would’ve told just about anyone else right now. And what he should’ve told him as well. And yet… he didn’t. “Headaches.”

The man blinked again, looking genuinely taken aback by that. “Headaches…?”

“Been having them for weeks now.” Hit continued, not missing the way the man’s eyes started to widen. “They just keep getting worse. Feels like my head’s about to split open at any moment.”

“Split open, you say?” The man muttered, his jovial voice all but gone now. His eyes looking like they’d just seen a ghost, as they hovered over his forehead, as if expecting his temple to literally split apart then and there. “Tell me… have you been having some interesting _dreams_ lately?”

Now it was Hit’s turn to have his eyes widen in shock. The alarm bells going off in his head despite the out-of-place serenity he felt around this individual. Staring him dead in the eye with an analytical gaze that could never belong to a normal boy, he could tell right away that hadn’t been a throwaway question. This man knew something. He _definitely_ knew something that he didn’t. “How did-”

Just as Hit was about to ask this man for some answers, as if ordained by fate itself, the pain in his head all but _skyrocketed_. Dropping to his knees in an instant, Hit was rendered helpless under a fresh of wave of cranial agony that assaulted him. His hands flying up and clutching the sides of his skull, grabbing fistfuls of hair in the process, as he let out an audible, pained hiss through his now grounded teeth. Even his eyes were forced shut again, squinting so hard the skin around his eyelids began to crease.

“ _Damn it!... will these ever stop!?_ ” This one was easily as bad as the first one today, if not worse! Normally, Hit was a calm and collected person, something earned through all his time as a professional killer in his former life. It wasn’t often that anything ever rattled him, but he found no shame in admitting right now that this was doing it for him. He was reaching his wits end with this. He needed answers, and this man may just have what he sought. He had to hope this guy knew what was going on with him, because he was no longer in the mood to deal with this crap.

“I can feel it…” The man whispered lowly to himself, barely loud enough for Hit to even hear. “There’s no mistaking it…” Was that… excitement in his tone? “It’s finally happening… one of them is _finally_ coming back!...”

_“What… the hell is he on about? Wh-What’s finally happening?... one of them is finally coming back?... What does that even mean…?”_ Peeling his eyes open with a lot of effort, Hit stared up blearily at the still kneeling man, and even through his limited vision, the once legendary assassin could make out the changed expression now adorning the man’s face. One of pure, unrepressed joy, with a smile that might as well be splitting his face in two, and… hold on, were those tears in his eyes?

What was up with him all of a sudden?

“Oi, you there! What do you think you’re doing?!” A sudden voice cut in, sounding aghast. It was the voice of the woman who’d comforted his mother. “Get away from that boy now, you creep!” Through the agonizing pain, Hit couldn’t be sure if the angry sounding woman’s voice had gotten closer or not. His senses were starting to fail him. He couldn’t even look up at the man anymore, as he fell on to his side. His knees curling up towards his stomach on instinct, bringing him into the foetal position as his consciousness began to wane. His ears beginning to ring and tune out all sounds around him as he lost focus.

“My dear child, don’t you worry.” The man suddenly piped up elatedly, his voice coming across perfectly clear to him despite his predicament somehow, when all other sounds became white noise to his ears. “This pain you’re feeling right now, as bad as it will get, you’ll get through this. Trust me, it’ll all make sense soon enough.”

For Hit just then, the pain consumed him entirely, far worse now then it had ever been, and the world around him went dark.

_Later that day… around night-time…_

“Oh honey… what am I going to do…” Lyra spoke softly, her puffy red eyes fixed on to the shaking form of her son, laid out on his own bed. Her body knelt by his bedside watching over him. His face deathly pale and full of sweat, his teeth gnashing together in his sleep from what must’ve been excruciating pain, that she had no idea of the cause of. “First you die, and now our son has fallen ill… and I don’t know how to help him…” Bessie, her dearest friend, bless her heart, had been the first to notice her boy collapsing to the ground in a heap. She’d shouted at that weird man near him to get away, before helping her get her son back safely to their house and into his room no more than four hours ago.

She hadn’t left him at all since then, and his condition hadn’t gotten any better either. He still clutching his head in both his tiny hands, even in his sleep like it was about to pop open at any second.

Bessie had managed to get hold of one of the local doctors since they’d gotten back and had managed to get him over here to check on her little man.

Unfortunately, the poor man hadn’t the faintest clue what was wrong with him. Even after checking on him for what felt like an eternity, he’d come up with nothing. Not even the slightest diagnosis for his current condition. Bessie had all but barked the doctor’s head off before he left with a rushed apology, before she too left as well. Telling her to remain strong and hope for the best. To call her over if she needed her help.

Normally, she may have accosted her pal for her behaviour towards the doctor, knowing that he had tried his best under the circumstances, and simply came up short. It happened to all of them and getting bent out of shape about it wouldn’t help anyone.

Not this time though. She’d didn’t have the heart to tell her friend to calm down then, not while her own son was the one who needed help. And not even a day removed from when she’d had to watch her husband be lowered into the ground, no longer there to help support her with their child.

The timing of this really couldn’t have been any worse…

Fresh tears managed to well up in her eyes, even after all that she’d spent already. “Oh James… why did you have to go?...” Tears now falling down her stained cheeks, her hands gripped the linen of her boy’s bed so hard the knuckles turned white, shaking all the while like a leaf blowing in the wind as she struggled to contain herself. Alas, as had been the case the last few days, she failed _miserably_ in doing so. “Can’t you see how much our boy is hurting…? Can’t you see how much _I’m_ hurting…?” She sobbed almost hysterically, placing her forehead against the soft mattress as her tears dripped down to the floor.

Two days… that’s all it had taken for her life to turn upside down…

Just two _bloody_ days, and she’d lost her husband, and now she might even lose her precious little man for all she knew…

Why… why was this happening to her!?

Had she done something wrong? Did she commit some sin she wasn’t aware of, and this was God’s way of punishing her?

“This isn’t fair…” She wept, raising up to look at her boy’s sleeping face, full of nothing but pain, when it should’ve been serene. It was at a time like this more than anything that she wished with all her heart that James was still there with her. Right by her side to help her through this, even if just as a shoulder to lean on, and nothing else… “Damnit James… I need you…”

“Well now, isn’t this just a sight that tugs on the heartstrings~.”

Lyra froze stiff at the sound of the new, jovial sounding voice. One that most certainly couldn’t have come from her boy, and one that was most definitely not Bessie either.

Raising her head up, tears staining her reddened cheeks, the now single mother locked her eyes on to the source of it. And despite all the grief she felt at the moment, she couldn’t help but widen her eyes in shock at the figure that stood in front of the doorway to the room.

The figure that stood before her was by no means human. He, if one could call the creature that, resembled a grotesque caricature of what a gentleman from one of the bigger cities looked like. Standing above seven feet tall, ‘he’ easily towered over everything around him, and looked like he barely even fit in the room to begin with, what with his cartoonishly rotund body that swelled out around his waist like some kind of balloon. An umbrella held in one hand and propped on to his shoulder with what looked to be a pumpkin head near the top.

His attire itself mainly, had she been paying proper attention to it, she might have recognised as being identical to the one worn by the strange man who’d been in the graveyard earlier.

It was the creature’s face she found herself zoning in on with a hint of fear. What with its grey skin and pointy ears that gave ‘him’ a goblin-like appearance. The most noticeable trait immediately however, was his large, rectangular-shaped mouth that stretched a good ten inches from top to bottom, and was set in what looked to be a perpetual, toothy grin. A pair of beady, playful looking golden eyes she could just about make out through the small pair of round-rimmed glasses he wore over the ridge of nose.

To say his full appearance was _otherworldly_ would be putting it mildly. She’d even go so far as to say he looked downright _demonic_.

“Oh, so sorry about that miss Lyra. Guess I startled you there~.” He apologised in a polite tone, going so far as to give a light bow, which completely clashed with his unsavoury appearance.

“Y-you know my name…?” Lyra muttered in trepidation, but also confusion at the being’s oddly friendly demeanour.

“But of course!” the being replied happily, it’s grin ever-present and unchanging. Then again, with a jaw that freakishly elongated, she doubted it was even possible for it to move at all. Heck, when ‘he’ spoke, his mouth didn’t even move… “Oh, but where are my manners? My name is the Millennium Earl, and it’s a pleasure to meet you~.”

“O-okay?” She stuttered in a mix of awe and distress. Taken off guard once again by the goblin-looking being’s politeness, and what appeared to be care-free attitude.

“No need to be scared dear. I’m only here because I was made aware of your plight and wanted to offer my assistance~.” The Earl revealed, his glasses glinting ominously beneath his decorated top hat. Obscuring from her vision the way his eyes hovered over her and to her son for the briefest instant.

“A-assistance…?” She blinked, not sure what he meant by that. “W-what do you mean…?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to help you get your husband back from that _detestable_ God of yours~!” The Millennium Earl proclaimed with a jolly air that felt so jarringly out of place once again with his demonic visage, as he pointed the tip of his umbrella over to the other side of the room, where a purple light shone behind the woman. Enough so that she turned towards the source of the light as it receded and let out a gasp at what she saw.

A mid-night black skeleton now stood before her out of nowhere, held up by a contraption that kept it from just falling to the floor in a cluttered heap. “If you want your husband back, all you’ll have to do, is call his name with all your might, and his soul will come rushing right back~!”

“Y-you’re serious…? I… I can really have him back…? Just like that…?” She all but whispered in shock and awe, her grief and depression blinding her from all the warning signs that should’ve popped up, as a glimmer of hope entered her eyes, that perhaps whatever this being was, it was telling her the truth.

“That’s right, my dear! As I said, all you have to do, is call out his name as loudly as you can, and he’ll be right back in your arms in no time~!”

In that moment, Lyra’s growing hope for her husband’s possible return to her and their child won out over any sort of rational sense she may have had. And in just one word, she unknowingly sealed her own fate.

“James!” She cried out at the top of her lungs, with all the power she could muster behind it, and as if coming from the very heavens themselves, a shining ball of purple energy shot down from the ceiling and slammed down into the skeleton, giving it a faint, dark purple glow.

When that glow disappeared, Lyra held her breath for a second, as the skeleton began to stir. The star that was emblazoned on its forehead having letters quickly scrawling themselves out below it from thin air, spelling out the name of her beloved.

The skeleton’s head moved up, and a voice that was oh-so-familiar came out of its bony maw. “L-Lyra…?”

Said woman almost felt like collapsing to her knees in crushing relief, the despair that had been wrapped over her heart waning as she heard her darling husband’s gravely voice again. Tears of joy beginning to well up in her eyes this time as she stepped forward. “Yes honey, its me…” Her arms were wrapped around the skeleton before she knew it, embracing it wholeheartedly as though he was as he had been. Ignoring that he was still but a skeleton without flesh. “You’re back… I’m so glad…”

“What have you done…” He whispered in abject despair, which caught her off-guard. “Y-you turned me into an Akuma!” He suddenly shouted, frightening her as his despair filled voice bellowed out with palpable rage.

“I-I what…?” She muttered with wide eyes, her body freezing up at the sheer _venom_ in her lover’s tone. Not understanding the ramifications of what she’d truly just done.

“Heh!” The Millennium Earl let out a light, but sinister chuckle, as he once again pointed his umbrella forward at the now named Akuma with manic glee. “Now then, my precious Akuma, I order you to _kill_ this woman and wear her skin as your own~!”

“H-huh…?” All Lyra could do was look aghast at such a statement, disbelief and horror etching on to her face as she saw the skeleton raising its arms up, and in place of hands were razor-sharp bones poised to strike. “J-James…?”

A gargled scream permeated around the small, quaint room like a ghostly, unintelligible wail, blood spraying out and splattering over the woman’s dress, the floor, and the sheets of the bed that Hit was rolled up in, as the dagger-like arms stabbed down into her neck the very next second. All the woman could do, was stare up in shock, unable to comprehend her ghastly fate, as the life quickly drained out of her eyes, whilst her blood pooled down her body from her punctured neck.

The woman dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes with a wet _thud!_ The Earl watched with satisfaction as his creation all but butchered up her body from there in a gory display, tearing through her dress and through her flesh like a hot knife through butter. Splattering even more of her red fluid around the room. Seeing it had opened up enough room inside, It brought its sleek, dark form forward, melding itself into the woman’s own skeleton, which was visible by this point through the torn-up flesh and becoming one with its new host body.

The flesh quickly closed back up then once this process was done, a purplish hue emanating from the dead body, even the holes and tears made in the dress were swiftly fixed up, leaving behind little proof that such a horrendous, gory display had even taken place. All with the exception of the blood that stained all over the dress and neck of the woman, along with the room itself as well.

A dark purple star formed over the forehead of the body, which began to stir in a mechanical manner. The body slowly, and robotically rising to its feet. Red eyes that once held a vibrant life to them now sucked dry and left duller than a rotten pair of apples. Face completely devoid of emotion for the moment, the new Akuma bowed to its master solemnly. Taking a knee before him like any loyal soldier would. “Lord Millennium.” It greeted with the utmost respect, sounding just like its host, but without any of the personality.

“At ease.” Its master dismissed casually, and with a wave of his umbrella, the new Akuma vanished from the room in a haze of darkness, to be used at his leisure whenever he saw fit. “Well, now that that’s settled…” His eyes then floated down back to the only other resident of the room, and if possible, his impossibly wide grin _grew_ seeing the boy writhe in agony under the sheets.

Strolling closer, the Earl gently kneeled down next to the shaking boy, and found his eyes lighting up in a mixture of joy and anticipation, replacing his previous manic glee as he looked over him. Blood dripping off the sheets of the bed still from when that woman had been killed, but he focused more particularly on the blood that pooled around the child’s head, which had most certainly not come from his latest creation.

Allowing his umbrella to _float_ out of his hand as if it had a mind of its own, the Earl felt a wave of nostalgia and genuine happiness he hadn’t felt in a long time surface, as he steadily picked the youth off his bed with extra care, delicately holding him bridal style against his chest. “There, there… you’re in safe hands now.” The Millennium Earl whispered to the quivering mess in his arms, as blood dripped down on to his coat, gently and lovingly embracing him in his arms like a loving parent or older sibling. Tears practically pouring out of his eyes from how happy he was. “It’s finally time for you to come _home_.”

Turning on his heel with a spring to his step but being sure to keep the small boy safely tucked into his arms, the elated Earl looked towards the door as space seemed to shift around it. The regular door to the boy’s room being slowly replaced by a heart-shaped set of double doors, one coloured red, the other black.

The doors pulled open on their own, as if to invite the Earl and child in with open arms.

Before making his way in, the Earl paused and glanced down at the shivering boy in his arms, holding his head in both hands like his life depended on it. His golden pools reflected the child in them, as did his glasses, showing the cross shaped scar that had ripped its way out of the centre of the kid’s forehead, bleeding profusely as it pulsed angrily in agitation. A sight that only made him even giddier by the second.

It had begun.

**AND CUT!**

**Well… that’s certainly a way for things to go.**

**I don’t have much else to say to you all right now, other than I hope you had a good read, and look forward to the next chapter, which will come out in August. There’s some interesting stuff ahead, that’s for sure!**

**I’ll see you all then!**


	4. The Second Child

**Noah’s Hitman:**

**Chapter 4: The Second Child.**

_“Just… how long… is this going to… go on for…?”_ Hit thought to himself, once again within one of these dreams he’d been having lately. Only this time, it felt far longer than the others, and worse, even despite being in a dream, the utter _agony_ that had rendered him unconscious in the first place was somehow still present.

As the pain somehow continued to persist, he’d been subject to an ungodly amount of visions from a past that felt _far_ too familiar to him. Playing back like a long line of forgotten memories that were only just cropping up now in a rapid-fire maelstrom that overtook him.

He saw those mysterious figures again, along with that strange vessel they were on, he saw the world seemingly end in a great flood before being cascaded into a world of darkness. Before that even, he saw countless battles playing back before him this time, involving those figures fighting against other mysterious figures that he hadn’t seen before. Untold destruction, at least as far as this world was concerned being wrought by both sides vying for dominance over the other.

They were at war. That much was clear. Though as to why they were warring with one another, he could not discern. All he could do was watch on through it all, as the thirteen mysterious figures battled against many other foes, and through it all, he saw the vague outlines of weapons being wielded by the other side, all glowing a luminescent green.

_Innocence._

Hit didn’t know how he suddenly knew what those weapons were, but he did. The name seemingly just popping into his head, like all the other memories that he shouldn’t have had. This name however, it came across to him like a whisper through subconscious, resonating through his very soul itself. A feeling almost as strong as the familiarity he was currently experiencing for the thirteen figures battling against those that wielded.

Only instead of feeling that bizarre, familial warmth he did for those figures fighting and killing those wielding them… all he could feel towards the people fighting them, particularly the weapons they used, was hate. A pure, unbridled, near overwhelming _hatred_ for them, along with an equally strong urge to see those weapons destroyed. As if they were a bane to his existence. A scourge that was only capable of causing him suffering, a plight that should be eradicated with expedience and extreme prejudice.

_Accursed Innocence... never forgive…_

_“Who’s… saying that…?”_ Hit thought to himself as the dream continued on for what felt like an eternity, forcing him to watch an unholy amount of carnage being wrought as both sides clashed. A part of him cheering on for a reason he still couldn’t understand, as those familiar figures managed to take down their adversaries one by one. That same part crying out in vengeful anger and vitriol whenever the other figures managed to fight back and land attacks of their own, wounding those he felt a connection to, writhing about as it wished to spill their blood and make them suffer for their transgressions. To kill them without mercy and shatter those vile weapons into nothing. To crush and grind them into dust.

To bring _judgment_ down upon them for their sins against his family… whilst also ensuring that his family didn’t turn against one another and remained a strong unit against their enemies.

_“Wait… my family…?”_ Hit felt nothing but confusion at that last thought crossing his mind. Regardless of how familiar these figures felt, he knew for certain he’d never met them before, and they sure as hell weren’t his family either in this life, or his previous one.

And yet… it now felt like his very soul itself was screaming at him that he was wrong. That he couldn’t have been more _wrong_ with that thought. That this, despite how ludicrous it was to him, was the truth. These memories were real, and a part of him that he’d simply been unaware of until recently, and these figures now waging war against those wielders of Innocence, were his family. It didn’t matter how asinine his mind believed it to be, even with all these foreign memories that shouldn’t be his, but somehow felt like they _were,_ those figures felt connected to him in a way stronger than blood ties could ever be. The longer this damned dream - or perhaps nightmare would be the better term – went on, he felt a growing desire to be with them. A growing desire to be reunited with those that he was somehow feeling a stronger bond towards than he’d ever felt for _anyone_ in his long life.

But if that was truly the case… then why the hell could he not recall any of their names? Surely if they meant this much to him, which was still baffling for him, and they were in fact his family, then why couldn’t he remember who they were? Why were they just shadows instead of faces? Nameless, faceless figures who’s mere presence within his dream was causing him both great joy and sadness at the same time.

The only name that still rang within him, which he could still feel whispering about within the very depths of his psyche and was the one that didn’t feel like the name of another. It instead… felt like it was his own, just like the name he’d been given from birth back in Universe 6. One just as important to his identity, if not more so, as ridiculous as that sounded to him, as his original name.

_Toraido._

_The second child of Noah…_ A calm voice echoed throughout his dream once more, and with it, the pain seemed to dull somewhat.

_“There’s that voice again… the second child-”_ Hit was cut off from that thought, as the memories ceased playing around him, as the space in front of his vision began to warp. A featureless figure slowly materialising close to him, within a hair’s-breath away from him inside this dream, or at least it felt like it. Up to now he’d just felt like a formless bystander forced to watch on, yet somehow still feeling the agonizing pain in his forehead of flesh being carved out from the inside several times over.

Hit was sure he could feel his eyes widening slightly at the sight of the figure that appeared before him in the shape of an adult human. Vaguely anyway, as it wore nothing and held no facial features at all, except for a face-splitting grin that seemed to be etched onto it with a full set of wide, gleaming teeth.

Well… this was new…

The figure tilted its head as it, well, he assumed it looked at him since it didn’t have eyes. Outside of the smile, which was creepily large, he couldn’t visibly make out anything of an expression. He was sure that a visage like this would normally cause a child his age to feel fearful given its uncanny appearance. For him though, it would be a cold day in hell before anything like this would make him feel even the slightest bit of fear, as he’d seen far worse.

That didn’t stop the uneasy feeling he got momentarily though, as the pure white being managed to grin even wider, as if in some form of satisfaction. As if adding to that, it felt like, for some reason, he was standing in front of a mirror… and he was looking right into his reflection.

_I’m finally awake…_ the being seemingly said without moving its mouth.

No, it wasn’t just it the being speaking this in his mindscape…

_The judge of Noah…_ It was both the being _and_ him saying this, in complete unison.

No wait, that implied they were separate entities that were in synch with each other. It would be far more accurate to say…

_Is reborn…_ they were as one together. Both part of a single whole uttering these lasting words that resonated deeply like a never-ending whirlpool in the depths of his being, before washing out all over him like a tidal wave. The pain he felt subsiding even further, as a sense of wholeness that he’d, quite frankly, never felt even in the millennium long life he’d led in Universe 6 before this, washed over him. Making him feel like he was truly complete, and one with himself for the first time. A concept he would’ve scoffed at not even a day ago, regardless of what his dreams were showing him. Don’t even get him started on before he’d been sent to this world and born again.

But now though?

The figure leaned in closer and Hit felt like his new body was now apart of the dreamworld. Their faces came close enough for their foreheads to touch, before a blinding light began to emit from the faceless, grinning being. And as that light completely consumed what had become the darkness of his mind, and he began to lose his sight, one final vision came to him before the dream faded. He felt like he could see muted images of the world he now inhabited and see it through a different lens. A strange pillar showing itself before his eyes then, of which he had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be, formed out of pure light, and shaped like an upside-down cross. Just from looking at it, Hit felt like he was seeing the truth after all the other memories of how this world truly was. Something horrible hidden beneath the surface that he couldn’t find the words to describe. Which to be frank, wasn’t too dissimilar from other worlds he’d been to in his previous universe, particularly within his younger years.

Just then, as they faded away, a powerful feeling quickly welled up in him. Now, more so than when he’d been birthed into this new world, as this being seemed to merge with him, its figure fading away into him as the light overwhelmed him…

He felt like he’d _truly_ been reborn… 

_As the dream ended…_

“Ugh…” Hit groaned, as his eyes started to peel open. His vision blurry for a couple seconds, but eventually focusing in properly to allow him to see the stark white roof over his head.

“Where… am I…?” He asked, more to himself than anything else. He knew for damn certain that his room in the house didn’t have a ceiling as white as that, so he was clearly somewhere else. Slowly rising up groggily from whatever bed he seemed to be lying, with the duvet cover slinking down to around his small waist, Hit couldn’t help but feel incredibly exhausted, but also somewhat relieved to feel that the horrendous pain in his head was no more. And for some reason, he got the feeling it wouldn’t be coming back again.

Noting how weak he felt at the moment, he chose the safer option to simply take a look around his surroundings. The feeling of familiarity struck him almost immediately. Not the room itself, but whatever larger complex he was in, he was definitely aware of, despite having never been here physically before. The room itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but was quite spacious, with the bed he was in being in the centre of the room that was easily three times bigger than his own at the house. There were several pictures and paintings framing the walls around him, with people, animals and places. The first of which clearly by impressive artists of some description, the second being a mix of photos and paintings of mostly cats and crocodiles for some reason, and the last of which, if he had to guess, were of famous locations around this universe’s version of earth. Like the pyramids in Egypt, or the Eiffel tower in France, which was very recent in this world, if was not mistaken. Right across from the end of the bed, was a door that obviously would lead him out of the room. Though as to where, he didn’t really know.

It was then however, that his gaze scanned passed a mirror hung on the wall on his left side, one directly aligned with his bed. Normally, he would’ve disregarded looking into a mirror as he wasn’t someone who particularly cared about his appearance, and simply skipped passed it without issue. However, this time he stopped himself as soon as something that wasn’t right registered in his mind about his reflection and this had him steadily inch his gaze back into the mirror.

“ _What the hell…?_ ” And as soon as he did, Hit was instantly caught off-guard by his own reflection. His eyes widening in surprise as he saw that his once pale skin tone had changed to that of an ashen grey, and his blood-red eyes had turned a molten, amber gold. While his dark purple locks of hair seemingly remained the same, though a few strands were matted down to a bandage that covered his temple, which was soaked blood-red in various places.

The pain in his head from before… that feeling of his forehead being carved out like a pumpkin…

After a small bit of hesitation, Hit raised up both of his now ashen-grey hands, grabbing on to either end of the bandage covering his whole forehead, and despite how weak he felt at the moment, he was still able to slowly peel the bandage off himself without much effort. As soon as it was removed, his hands pulling it away down to his lap, Hit could only stare in genuine shock at what he saw. Seven small, cross-shaped scars practically carved out along his forehead, from one side of his temple to the other. Dried up blood staining along the sides of some of them, along the skin of his forehead surrounding the scars.

Raising a hand again, Hit’s index and middle fingers brushed along the one stood in the centre of his forehead. A dull ache meeting him in response that wasn’t even remotely close to the atrocious pain he’d had to deal with before. _“So, my head really was getting carved out… and it appears my skin has turned to ash as well. How… intriguing…”_

It wasn’t just outward appearance either though. No. He could feel a change had taken place inwardly as well. His childish frame no longer felt… well… _human_ to be blunt. As weak as he felt now, there was something about his body that made it feel inherently superior to that of the ordinary human he’d been previously, sans the soul and mind of a millennium old hitman, of course.

Most people in this situation might’ve panicked, at least a bit at this turn of events, but Hit had long since learned to never let himself become overtaken by such an emotion. His practised calmness easily winning over as it always did and squaring his face back into a neutral expression. Dispelling the pointless feeling before it ever had a chance to surface, as it typically only made things worse.

Just then, Hit heard the door to the room open, and his head turned to gaze at the newcomer. A woman with a placid complexion, dressed up in a dark maid dress and small heels, with chestnut-brown hair held up in a bun behind her head, with pasty-white sclera for eyes devoid of irises or pupils. A dark purple star was also etched over the centre of the woman’s forehead.

“O-oh! Master Noah, you’re awake!” The woman remarked in surprise, her voice sounding more like a machine trying to imitate a female human, rather than an actual woman. The best comparison he could make of her voice, is that it reminded him of the metal-men of his now destroyed universe. There was certainly emotion behind their words, but there was no denying how robotic they came off all the same.

Master Noah though? Last he checked his name had never been Noah. But strangely, he got the feeling she wasn’t referring to it as a personal name, but as something else… something akin to a family name was his best guess, which had him getting that feeling of familiarity yet again.

“I’d best fetch Lord Millennium immediately! He’ll want to see you as soon as possible!” The maid said, joy seeping into her tone as she didn’t bother giving him any other warning before quickly bolting out of the doorway. Leaving the door wide open as she rushed down a hall.

Lord Millenium? Though this was his first time hearing such a title, the name itself was definitely ringing a bell with him…

“Wow, someone’s in a rush.” Another voice said with a hint of humour from within the hallway outside of his room. Their voice distinctly light and feminine, like that of a young girl in her early teens.

A short, lithe figure then walked in front of the doorway, confirming his suspicions as it was indeed, a young-looking girl in her early teens. One who couldn’t have been any older than fourteen from appearance. The young lass had purple-blue, spiky hair done up in a punk-rock style, with the same ashen skin tone, amber eyes, and cross-shaped scars that he now had. Her outfit being that of a gothic-punk Lolita dress, with the top section being white with frills lining the centre, while the bottom half was a light-purple skirt that reached down to just about the upper portion of her thighs. Stockings of the same colour as her skirt reaching up to the middle of her thighs, with black shoes worn over her feet to finish her little ensemble.

The new girl, who’d been previously gazing off where the maid had run off to, didn’t waste time turning her head to the side as she looked into the room. Her amber pools meeting his in that instant, and no sooner did this happen, that an excited gleam entered her eyes, and a gleeful smile quickly formed on her lips.

“Ahah!” She giggled girlishly, as she quickly made her inside the room with a level of speed he hadn’t quite been expecting. All but diving over the bed with ease, circling her arms around his head as she reached him before he could react, and embraced him with a hug. One that was far too enthusiastic for a stranger to be doing, almost knocking him backwards unto his back, as her knees propped up on the mattress either side of his duvet covered legs. “Look who’s finally awake!”

“ _What… the hell…?_ ” Hit, for the first time in a genuine while, found himself staring at someone in complete befuddlement. His eyes locked to the back of her head as this girl he’d never seen before hugged him close to her, propping his chin on her shoulder as she squeezed him tightly. Not unlike how an older sister would affectionately embrace their younger sibling. Something he’d seen done before by others, in both this world, and his previous, but had never actually felt himself.

But there was no shirking off that feeling coursing through him again. Of this girl holding a strong, familial-like connection to him that couldn’t be accurately put into words. One that wasn’t too hard for him to gleam himself from first glance, given she held much of the same characteristics he currently did as far as physical appearance was concerned.

“Oh wow! You look just so _precious_!” She all but squealed with childish enthusiasm, leaning back as she somehow managed to pull him into an even _deeper_ hug that almost cut off his oxygen supply, making it significantly harder to breathe. “You’re so small, cute and cuddly, I could just gobble you up right now!” She exclaimed teasingly, or at least, he hoped it was teasingly.

Regardless of intent, Hit found his eye twitching slightly at the ‘cute’ remark. He didn’t care that he was in the body of a child now, he still had the mind of someone completely ancient by human standards, who’d been a professional killer for most of his life. He wasn’t someone who did ‘cute’. Not then, not now, and not ever if he had a say in it.

“And just… who might you be…?” Hit asked carefully, given he could barely breathe at the moment due to her absurd, overly clingy grip. Doing his best not to come off as sounding rude, as he wasn’t much of a touchy-feely kind of person either.

“Oh, where are my manners?” She giggled once again and Hit had to wonder given the inflections in her tone if she was actually being apologetic for not introducing herself sooner or was just messing with him. “My name is Road, and from now on, I’ll be your new big sister!”

His… what? “Come again…?”

Pulling back with a broad smile, Road gave him all of about a second to properly catch his breath, before pulling his head into her chest and burying his face into the fabric of her dress. “Aww! Just look at that face of yours, hehe! You look so adorable with that confused look on your face!”

Hit visibly cringed. Not just from her latest quip, but also from her overly strong hug squishing his face into her dress and making it virtually impossible for him to breathe this time. If he didn’t get her to stop this soon, considering how weak he currently was, she’d render him unconscious again from deprivation of air…

“Road, that’s enough.” A voice that Hit recognised called from the door. “The boy only just woke up after seeing his memory, after all. He’s no doubt exhausted after that, and you suffocating him isn’t making things any better.”

“Aww…” Road pouted in dismay, loosening her grip enough to allow him to breathe as she turned her head towards the one accosting her. “But he’s just so cute, Lord Millennium! Can’t I cuddle with him just a little longer? I’m sure he doesn’t mind.”

Oh, he _absolutely_ minded…

“Road…” The Earl cast a somewhat disapproving gaze at the girl. One that was enough to make her sigh like a young child that just got told she couldn’t play with her new toy any longer.

“Fine…” She said with an even greater pout, before unwrapping her arms from him, but remained in her sitting position with her knees bent and below her.

“Trust me, Road. I fully understand your enthusiasm seeing a member of our little family return to us, but please do save the affectionate gestures like that for later.” The Earl remarked earnestly as he made his way into the room and Hit finally got a good look at him as his gaze shifted to him. As soon as he did, his eyes widened slightly in shock at the grey-skinned, cartoonishly rotund, goblin-like caricature of a Victorian gentleman standing in front of his bed. With a rectangular shaped, toothy maw so elongated it was a wonder the being could even speak at all. Set in a perpetually wide grin. His attire identical to that of the man who’d been in the graveyard with him, which alongside the voice, tipped him off that they were most likely one and the same.

He knew there was something off about that man. And lo and behold…

The Earl’s gaze wasted no time shifted over to him, and somehow his grin grew _wider_ at the sight of him. His amber eyes behind his spectacles dancing with joy. “Well now, good to see you’re finally awake, little one~.”

Through countless years of practise, Hit’s features schooled themselves quickly into a neutral expression as he regarded the being that Road had called ‘Lord Millennium’. His usual calmness returning to him almost immediately, now that his face was no longer getting smothered by an overzealous, young teenager treating him like some sort of full-body plush doll. “Mind telling me who you are?” He asked, his mind clear enough to ask a question that his very being was telling him he knew the answer to already, along with his follow-up. “And while you’re at it, could you please explain to me _where_ I am? Last thing I remember before I lost consciousness was being in the graveyard…”

If the Earl was surprised by the boy’s reaction or his shockingly calm demeanour compared to how a child would normally be in a situation like this, then he did a fantastic job at hiding it. “Ah, of course. Seems I’ve forgotten my manners again. My name is the Millennium Earl, the patriarch of our little family, but you can just call me Earl or Lord Millennium. Whichever you prefer.” The Earl responded politely with a small bow. Tipping his top hat off for a second, showing two small, devilish horns atop his head. “And might I enquire as to what your name is?”

His name? Well, considering he could tell his body wasn’t human anymore, and he already couldn’t see himself going back to that life he’d been living in the mining village… he may as well go back to the name he much preferred over what he’d been given from birth here. “Hit.”

The Earl’s glasses glinted ominously under the light of the room, as he chuckled at the quick introduction. Clearly this one wasn’t the kind to mince words. No surprise there given which member he could tell he was. “Well then, on behalf of myself and Road here, who I’m sure has already introduced herself, I’d like to formally welcome you into your _real_ family, Hit. The clan of Noah~.”

“The clan of Noah, huh…” Hit felt a sudden emotion well up inside him as the Earl finished, like he was about to tear up in joy at the prospect of being with his ‘real’ family, though he couldn’t for the life of him understand why that was. There was no denying the familiar feeling he got from both the Earl and Road though. Same as what he got for the figures in his recurring dreams. That feeling of a familial bond that couldn’t be properly put into words, but definitely stronger than blood.

“That’s right.” Road spoke up this time. Her pout vanishing as a smile took its place. Gaze settling back on him. “You’re one of us, now. And I for one look forward to you being with us from now on.”

“Here, here.” The Earl agreed as he put his hat back on. “And as for your second question. At this very moment, you’re inside the home where all of our clan originate from, and the room you’ve been resting in is a part of as well. That being Noah’s Ark~.”

“ _Noah’s Ark…?_ ” Recalling his dreams again, which the Earl had just confirmed was in fact a memory of some sort, it didn’t take long for the once legendary hitman to piece together what he was talking about. “You mean that vessel I saw in my ‘memory’, right?”

“The very same~.” The Earl nodded with a look of joy in his eyes. Though that quickly changed to one of sympathy and concern, with a hint of melancholy. “I assume then that you were able to handle what you saw?”

A look of confusion entered Hit’s features. “Why do you ask?”

“Well… it’s just that typically, when someone awakens as one of us, the memory they see of the past, and how the world _really_ is can be quite intense.” He explained, sounding like he was talking from experience. “Depending on the memory as well, the reaction to witnessing such a thing can be rather unpleasant. You,” The Earl said while pointing at him. “young one, bare the memory of the Judge of Noah, I can sense it quite clearly. And given how young you are, I was expecting a more… _volatile_ reaction to what you’ve seen, after you woke up. Which is why I had one of my Akuma periodically checking on you for the time you finally woke up, so that I could come over as fast as possible to comfort you, if need be.”

Ah. So that’s why the maid had rushed off so quickly. Apparently, she was also a demon of some sort that he had control of apparently, going off what he’d just said. Still not anything he hadn’t come across before in some sense, so he didn’t bother to pry into that.

Usually, Hit wasn’t much of a talkative person, but right now he felt far more comfortable and relaxed around these two than he otherwise should’ve. A fact that only strengthened what they’d been telling him so far, as he didn’t see even a hint of deceit in their eyes or in their body language as they said all this to him. Body of a child or not, he was still, for the most part, as perceptive as he was in his previous body. If he had noticed them trying to deceive him, he didn’t care how much he inwardly felt a powerful kinship towards them, he would’ve been far more guarded than he was currently being. “I see. In that case, yes, I handled it just fine.”

This time, the Earl genuinely blinked owlishly in surprise. Even Road seemed to be somewhat taken aback as well given the expression of disbelief crawling on to her face. “You did? You’re sure about that? Nothing about what you saw is egging on your mind?”

“Not really.” Hit shrugged. “It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

As bad as what he’d seen had been, it paled in comparison to some of the things he’d seen in his previous universe, let alone the tournament of power where the two omni-kings essentially made entire universes fight for survival from total erasure purely for entertainment and because they thought there was too many. The mere fact alone that the only reason he’d been spared the fate of his existence getting wiped was because he entertained them enough to get a second chance, was something that would forever be head and shoulders above what this world would throw at him. Nothing compared to the fear even he felt being at the omni-kings mercy during that time, even if he didn’t outwardly show it.

The utterly stunned face of the Earl is what met him back this time, and even Road had her eyes widened in shock at the nonchalant way he’d blown off the ‘memory’. Her mouth somewhat agape at him, seeing how he was clearly being blunt and honest with them. Rather embarrassingly, it took Hit a few seconds to remember again, that to them, he was just a reserved ten-year-old who hadn’t seen much of the world up until now, where his eyes should’ve been ‘opened’ all things considered. You know, rather than an alien who’d lived for over a thousand years that had seen his fair share of crazy and outlandish things, and just so happened to now have his soul and mind in the body of a small boy.

That last detail he didn’t plan on anyone other than him knowing about. No one else needed to know that about him, as for the most part, it was useless information. Not unless the omni-kings decided they were going to make an appearance in this world, of course. Which he didn’t see happening ever, considering the way the Grand Priest had phrased it to him before his departure.

“W-well… that’s good I suppose.” The Earl replied, still clearly in surprise over his dismissiveness of the traumatising memory. _“This is certainly a first… other than Wisely due to the nature of his own memory, no other member of the family that’s awoken throughout each generation has been able to take their memory this… easily!”_ He’d seen plenty of fully grown men and women in the past awaken, and they’d all had their own kind of traumatised reaction to what they saw to varying degrees, including for those who bared the memory of the Judge. Yet this boy… he wasn’t lying to him when he said that, and he certainly wasn’t hiding anything from him either, as some had tended to do in the past. Not being able to speak about what they saw for the first few days they were awake. A perfectly reasonable response after going through something so horrendous.

This kid however… the newest member of their family, and the first one born of this generation, was able to take what he saw, and rather than reject it in some fashion like some who woke up tended to do, he’d simply taken it in stride and shrugged it off like it wasn’t a big deal…

Not only that, but he could tell just from looking into his eyes that he hadn’t been subsumed by Toraido’s memory either. Which was one of the only two things he’d thought could happen. Either rejecting it in some form or being taken in by it. Just by looking at him, he could tell something else entirely had happened.

Could it be possible that this boy had…

“Anyway,” Hit sighed a little, which was enough to regain the Earl’s attention and cut off his thought for now. “While I now know who you are, what I am and where you’ve taken me, there’s still one thing nagging on my mind…” He revealed, accepting all of what he now was without any real issue. Something that most wouldn’t be able to do as easily as he was doing right now. But then again, those were still mostly simple human minds that hadn’t, and likely would never see a fraction of what he’d seen in his previous universe over the course of a thousand years.

“Oh? And what would that be?” Road asked curiously, finally somewhat recovered from the way he had dumbfounded her a minute prior with how easily he seemed to be taking all this. Even she hadn’t been nearly this okay when she’d first awakened some time ago. And she’d been _older_ than him back then too!

Eyes looking dead straight at the Earl, Hit regarded what every bone in his body was telling him to be his new ‘brother’ with a flat stare. “Could you tell me what happened to my mother?”

The ex-assassin may not have truly been close with either of his parents in any sense, due to no fault of their own, but they were still his parents in this reality. And last he checked, only his father was dead. His mother was still alive, as far as he knew. The least he could do is find out if the woman was okay or not, and if so, try to make sure she wouldn’t get involved with him anymore.

“Ah… that…” Suddenly, the Earl became awkward, even going so far as to break eye contact with him. Something that both he and Road noticed as they looked at him, letting them both know, especially Hit, that the answer wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. “Well…”

“You disposed of her, didn’t you?” Hit cut in with all the subtlety of a gunshot going off, the words spoken calmly, and his face set into stone. Just about the furthest kind of reaction one would expect from a child that had pieced together such a fate for their own mother.

“Sort of…” The Earl conceded. Crushing the small bit of worry he felt that their new brother may not take kindly to such a thing if they were particularly close, as he waved out his hand. Dark Matter pulsing out and causing a familiar figure to appear through the dark-purple mist he’d created. _“Best if I rip this little band-aid off now, rather than later…”_ He decided, having known this would probably crop up, as it hadn’t been the first time something similar to this had occurred either. The most recent example being something he’d rather not think about. Too painful otherwise…

“Lord Millennium.” The woman that had once been Hit’s new mother bowed upon her summoning. Skin a sickly white, with eyes just as whited out as that maid from before, and with that same dark purple star etched over her forehead. Her dress the same as it had been the night she’d been turned into one of his weapons, minus the blood. “How may I be of service to you?”

Just one look at her was all Hit needed to see to get the gist of what’d happened. It couldn’t have been any more in his face with what he’d learned so far. “You made her into an Akuma…”

“Ergh… yeah…” For the first time in his life, the Earl was starting to feel genuinely awkward about having turned someone into one of his Akuma. It wasn’t every day after all that he did this to the parent of one of his soon-to-be Noah brethren.

_“Oh boy…_ ” Road thought with her own hint of worry, knowing this might not go over too well. _“I really hope he doesn’t take this too badly…”_ While she personally couldn’t care less about the woman herself, she did care about how her new little brother might respond to this, given that she was still his mother at the end of the day. Any normal child wouldn’t exactly react kindly to something like this…

The moment she looked back at Hit, she was very quickly reminded, as though it hadn’t been demonstrated enough already, that he was by _no means_ a ‘normal’ child in any sense. Noah or not.

Hit’s face was still set in a neutral expression, without even a hint of anger or even resentment in his eyes. If anything, the only emotion she could make out from his now amber pools was… annoyance…

“Is there a way for you to change her back?” Hit asked, feeling somewhat sorry for the woman, an emotion he wasn’t used to feeling given his former profession. Even still, he didn’t care that this was his ‘true family’ he was with now. That woman had still been his mother for the last ten years, and she, in his mind, didn’t deserve whatever had been done to her.

“I’m afraid not.” The Earl shook his head, but at least had the decency to show some form of sympathy for him, given he’d been the one to make her like this in the first place. “Once I’ve made someone into an Akuma, there’s no turning them back, I’m sorry to say.” He was by no means sorry for turning her into another one of his Akuma, or rather, his father really, but he _was_ absolutely apologetic to his new brother if this caused him any distress. He wasn’t heartless, after all.

Despite his tiredness, Hit found himself pinching his eyes closed as vexation creeped into him. “Just great…” Of course, it had to be irreversible… what a pain…

Though he hadn’t had any true connection to her like a mother and son should’ve, knowing how bad things had gotten for her, and knowing what she’d ended up becoming in the end just wasn’t fair on her. Even as detached as he was, he knew that much at least.

“Don’t worry…” Road said sympathetically, taking his other hand and squeezing it in a gesture of good faith. The girl not entirely certain if he was sad or angry with the Earl underneath it all, as he was quite hard to read. Best to play it safe regardless. “As I said, you’re one of us now. And for what it’s worth, I know that Lord Millennium didn’t intend to hurt you by turning her into an Akuma…” To anyone else in his situation, that line wouldn’t have been comforting in the slightest.

Seeing him remove his fingers and reopen his eyes to look at her, she continued, hoping to diffuse a possible quarrel that she’d rather not have. “But, if you want, I’m sure Lord Millennium wouldn’t mind getting rid of her, if you wanted him to.” She remarked honestly, while glancing towards the Earl for support. “He already has plenty of Akuma as it is. He could do without this one if need be. You are way more important to us than any of his Akuma will ever be, after all.”

The Earl nodded his head vehemently in agreement, silently thanking the gothic-dressed girl for the helping hand. “Road is correct. A member of the family will always mean more to me than any amount of Akuma I create.” Raising his hand up above the Akuma’s head, his hand began to glow and pulse with dark energy that was magical in nature. “If you wish it, I’d be happy to dispose of the Akuma for you, if it made you feel better. I’ll release the soul and allow it to pass on to the afterlife. No problem. Just say the word and I’ll do it.” Better that than just making it self-destruct and have the soul be eaten by the Dark Matter in this case, as that would just be in bad faith.

Hit thought over that for a small moment, seeing that the two of them were once again being sincere with him. No attempt to pull a fast one on him here, like some of his old clients had tried to back in the day.

Another sigh broke through Hit’s lips, as he came to the conclusion that that was the best option either of his parents in this scenario could’ve hoped for. Though he couldn’t do much else for her, he owed his mother and father of this world that at least.

“Alright then.” Hit nodded in agreement. His features as stony as ever. “That should do.”

“Very well then…” As soon as Hit had given him the word, the Earl kept his own. His dark energy dropping out from his palm and striking the stationary form of the Akuma like a bolt of purple lightning. It made no move to protest or escape its fate, as the Earl uttered the word “Release.” 

Just then, its body quickly began to dissolve away. An ethereal figure that couldn’t be accurately made out was visible for less than a second, before they were gone in a purple flash of light aiming towards the ceiling. Right as it did, the body it had been inhabiting immediately disintegrated. Leaving not even a trace of its existence behind. “There. All done.”

All Hit could do was nod his head in thanks. Some small form of satisfaction welling up, knowing this place had an afterlife like his had before its erasure, and that both his parents were in a ‘better place’, as the church goers would say.

That seemed to be enough of a que for the Earl to see his gratitude and come to the conclusion that any chance of a potential row had just been quashed. His giant, face-splitting grin becoming just a little more pronounced. “Well then, now that that’s been dealt with, how about we get you out of bed and show you around your new home. Certainly beats being cooped up in here~.”

“Heh, that’s a great idea, Lord Millennium!” Road replied with great enthusiasm, as she turned towards Hit with a friendly, beaming smile. “What do you say, Hit? Up for a tour of the Ark?”

“Sure. Why not?” Hit replied back, feeling a wave of nostalgia that was no doubt linked back to that new ‘memory’ of his at the prospect of seeing around the Ark. Leaving that feeling aside, he might as well check it out now, as he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious how it really looked, considering that all he’d really seen from it in his ‘memory’ was incredibly vague.

“Great!” Road wasted no time latching on to his hand with hers as she hopped off the side of his bed with an exuberant expression on her face as she giggled to herself. “Then maybe after that, you and I can have some fun together! There’s a whole bunch of games that I’m just _dying_ to play with you! Ooh! Having a baby brother around is going to make things so much more entertaining around here!”

The Earl had a hearty laugh at Road’s enthusiasm as he took the lead, whilst Hit visibly cringed for the second time since waking up as he was effectively _dragged_ out of the bed by Road. Who was clearly more hyper-active now than she had been when she almost glomped him to death.

Perhaps he should’ve said he’d prefer to rest…

**AND CUT!**

**Well, that’s the end of this chapter anyway. Hope it came out well enough, though I have to say, I might’ve rushed the whole Akuma scene a little bit. Not entirely sure.**

**Either way, Hit is now officially a Noah, and next chapter, he’ll be filled in in a more in-depth way about what is going and what he’ll be apart of etc, etc.**

**As for those of you who’ve read the manga, not to spoil anything for those that haven’t read it yet, but I am aware about the Earl’s backstory and such. I’ll delve into that as well as the chapters go on.**

**Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this latest chapter, and I’ll see in the next one, which will hopefully be out in mid-September. So see you all then!**


	5. The New Home and Family

**Noah’s Hitman:**

**Chapter 5: The New Home and Family.**

“We’ll be going through here first.” The Earl remarked, a bit of a swing to his step as he opened and walked through a door that from Hit’s view, literally materialised from out of thin air. “It’s better to show you the main area of the Ark before anywhere else. The more specialised rooms can wait till later.”

_Specialised rooms…?_ Was Hit’s first thought, as Road pulled him through the door that the Earl had opened down the hall from the room he’d been sleeping in. The brightness of whatever place he’d just come into blinding him for a split second. He was curious as to what the Earl meant by that but had to put such a thought on hold as soon as his vision adjusted, and he could see where he’d been led into.

What met his gaze was a stark white cobble street to go along with equally as white buildings for almost as far as his eyes could see in every direction as he looked around. It was basically its own city from what he could tell, with a large tower at its centre, surrounded in a circle by over a dozen-and-a-half pillars not too much shorter than the tower itself. And if he wasn’t already certain that this place was effectively its own dimension, he need only have looked south to just about see where the city ended off. The space around it, from what he could tell, looked just like a sunny sky would, only without the sun itself to do so.

Hit couldn’t help the sudden wave of nostalgia that came over him as he looked around, no doubt from that memory of the Judge, as the Earl had put it. Like he was standing right where his true home was for the first time in years, and everything was how he remembered it, even if he’d never personally been here himself, and the sights themselves were all new to him.

“This is the main hub of Noah’s Ark. The place where not only the Noah clan originate from, but also humanity itself.” The Earl explained, catching Hit’s attention immediately, with Road listening in with a smile, having heard this tale before herself. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you Hit, about the tragedy that struck the world over seven thousand years ago?”

“Are you referring to that flood I saw in my memory?” Hit asked, getting that feeling again that he’d answered correctly before the Earl even replied.

“Correct~.” The Earl said jovially with a laugh. “That flood came shortly after the battle that took place between myself and that person who bared the most powerful piece of that accursed Innocence, the _Heart~_.” Glancing back at him and Road, the glasses that covered the Earl’s eyes glinted ominously yet again. “The end of that battle saw me coming out as the victor, but that guy managed to escape me even after his defeat. It also ended up causing the giant flood you saw in your memory that wiped out all of humanity, with the exception of our family, of course, who all took refuge on the Ark away from the catastrophe ensuing across the world. It’s an event that we and our enemies have come to refer to as the three days of darkness~.”

_Three days of darkness, huh?_ What an apt name. Though he’d bared witness to far worse in his old universe, the absolute, unyielding carnage that had befell this universe’s planet Earth all that time ago, which he’d gotten to witness first-hand in his new memory certainly lined up well with that kind of foreboding title.

Strangely though, he felt an odd compulsion to see to it that such an event came to pass again. Hit wasn’t sure why exactly the new part of him felt a desire to see it occur a second time though. He was by no means an altruist, and damn sure wasn’t a hero or ‘good guy’ as some might put it. If anything, after all the people he killed during his long tenure as a professional hitman, which probably could’ve spanned its own planetary-wide graveyard, he was not only numb to death, but quite apathetic to most life in general. Unless of course, as had been the case with the Tournament of Power, his existence and entire universe was on the line. Thus, seeing to an entire race’s extinction almost like a god of destruction in a sense, didn’t necessarily ruffle his feathers in any way. But what he did have to wonder, was what exactly would be achieved in doing so? That was the question.

He’d have to think on that later. Perhaps even ask the Earl about it, since he likely would know a lot more about it than he currently did. Especially if what he was about to ask next was confirmed true.

“So, since the rest of humanity was killed off back then, as you said, but we’re all still around, I’m guessing that means the Noah family of that time must’ve repopulated amongst themselves?” Hit broached, yet again with that feeling that what he’d said was on the money without anyone confirming it. Though, to be fair, with what the Earl had just told him, again without a sliver of a lie, it was pretty easy to come to such a conclusion, as he couldn’t really see another option, and he got that same feeling again that there wasn’t one.

“Heh! You’re on the ball, Hit. That’s exactly right~.” The Earl somehow grinned wider with his freakishly elongated maw. “The original twelve members of the Noah clan outside of myself, are the ones who founded the second generation of humanity, and they did it all here.” He said while splaying his arms out, as if to make it clear he was at least referring to the city itself in its entirety, though it was most likely the Ark as a whole. “As a result of this, all of the modern-day humans possess the genes of Noah, and each generation, these genes and the memories therein awaken within a select number of humans, turning them into one of us~.”

_So, our ancestors brought about humanity’s second coming, but now, going off what the Noah part of me is feeling, at the very least the one associated with me wants to see to their extinction? Am I missing something here?_ “That’d be thirteen, correct?” Hit found himself asking, recalling his dreams and the thirteen shadowy figures that kept popping up. “I recall seeing twelve figures in my dreams following someone else, who I assume was you, as everything went down.” And by ‘you’ he meant the original Earl, as for some reason he just got the feeling that the Earl in front of him now was different from the Earl of that time. He wasn’t sure in the slightest how to explain it, but he just knew somehow.

Instead of nodding or agreeing with him however, the Earl suddenly paused. His cheery disposition disappearing in an instant, as a sudden wave of melancholy seemed to overtake him. “Well… that _was_ the case until recently…”

“What do you mean by that?” Hit asked cautiously, taking immediate notice of the Millennium Earl’s swift temperament change. Through the corner of his eye, he could also make out the suddenly strained expression on Road’s face as her smile became rather forced.

“It’s probably best if we don’t talk about that, for now.” Road remarked with a smile that was a little too forced as she quickly made to change the subject. Something Hit didn’t fail to take note of. “Let’s just get back to the tour, right Lord Millennium?” She asked, handing him an olive branch just like she’d done for his mother earlier, something that the Earl didn’t fail to take.

“Yes… Quite right Road.” He nodded back, looking at her with another grateful look before turning his gaze to him. “Sorry about that, Hit. Got lost in thought there for a minute…” With that surprisingly soft apology out of the way, the Earl turned around and started walking forward, motioning for them to continue following.

Road did so without missing a beat, pulling him along with her, but as she did, she leaned back to where her lips were near his ear, as she whispered to him. “We’ll talk about that later. It’s a rather complicated situation you see, and one the Earl would prefer not to think about.”

Hit simply nodded his head at this, taking her at her word and filing that away for later. Though that did nothing to hide the look of confusion he gave her. He typically didn’t care to pry into anyone’s business, as it wasn’t any of his, but at the moment, he was getting a strong feeling that whatever she was referring to, it effected the Noah clan as a whole. And not only that, but this odd feeling rising up courtesy of this new part of him gave him a sense that he subconsciously knew what she was talking about, and what gave him pause was the strong feelings of hurt, loathing and _betrayal_ that came with it. Those sudden feelings made him more than curious to find out what was causing them.

Seeing his agreement, she gave a small smile back before turning towards the Earl as they all walked forward.

“Alright now, where was I? Oh yes~.” The Earl went on, his chipper mood back in full swing. As though he hadn’t been one short step away from falling into what looked like depression not even a minute ago. “In case you hadn’t noticed yet, my dear child, unlike regular humans, the transformation into a Noah has given you the use of _Dark Matter_ , our main source of power, which now pumps through your very veins themselves~.”

Dark Matter huh? So that’s what was coursing through him that made his body feel superior to the average human’s. Well, on the upside, it did feel somewhat similar to ki. Though he could definitely feel that it was quite different in a lot of ways as well. In the future, he’d have to test that out and see what it was made of, when he got a chance. Since the Earl had said he bared the memory of the Judge, he got a strong feeling that was important to the new energy source coursing through his being. Like there were certain things he would be capable of doing that no one else could. Something to that effect anyway.

“And as for the Ark. Despite its size, and no small shortage of rooms that we’ll get to soon enough, we can get around rather quickly by using any one of the many doors littered around the place~.” Twirling his pumpkin themed umbrella, the Earl pointed it towards a very specific small building no less than a block away from them. “How’s about you step through that one, hmm? I assure you, they’re all completely safe to walk through. Well, most of them, anyway, hehe~.”

“Hehe, come on, Hit. Best not to hold the show up!” Road laughed, as she pulled him by his hand and ran towards the door the Earl had zoned in on. All the while, his brow rose up at the fact that not all of the places these doors – which were clearly some sort of spatial travel rather than a regular doorway – were safe to walk through. 

He wasn’t given much time to think on that little tid-bit the Earl had spoken of as though it were a humorous joke, as his now overly excited ‘big sister’ dragged him to the door and opened it without a second thought, bringing him through it in barely enough time for him to even _blink._

What met Hit’s gaze this time, however, was something quite unique indeed, but which he managed to hide his surprise this time. A mostly dark space vaguely lit up by numerous sets of platform-like staircases that weaved all about for quite the distance in just about every direction, and some oddly placed candles that floated all around. Just from one glance around as Road pulled him up the staircase they so happened to appear close to the bottom of, his eyes could make out a good dozen or so more all around him as they ascended upwards. Numerous doors littered throughout them as well that no doubt led to different locations within the Ark, something he’d certainly have to get used to navigating in the future, it seemed.

It didn’t take long for the spiky haired lass to bring him up to the door at the very top of the staircase, and as soon as she did, wasted no time barrelling through it with him in tow like any kind of hyperactive schoolgirl.

“And would you just _look_ at that view!” The bluish-purple haired girl commented happily as they both stepped through the other side.

Looking around, he noticed a long, rectangular table set up in the centre of the fairly open room they were now in, with a white table-cloth already splayed over it, but with no cutlery on top of it. Other than the table, the room didn’t have anything else to it, other than numerous archways that led out to an open view of the outside, and as Road pulled him towards the closest archway on their right, he understood immediately what she meant by the view. He was now looking down over the entire city from up above in what he could instantly recognise as the tower in the centre of this place, close to its highest point. The architecture from up above especially reminding him of the few images he’d been shown in his school’s history class of Greco-Roman times to a degree, at least as far as everyday homes went.

“Quite the interesting form of travel, isn’t it?” The voice of the Earl piped up from behind them, causing both himself and Road to look back as the rotund, goblin-looking entity stepped through the doorway himself and gazed at them, or rather him specifically, with his ever-present grin. “Just about every door in this city connects to that pathway you just went through, which itself connects to just about every place within the Ark. This allows for you to have easy access to anywhere within, provided you can remember which place is where~” Strolling forth with a jovial stride, he stopped right next to the two of them, and took a look out over the city himself. “Don’t worry about it if it’s confusing at first, you’ll get used to it in time~.”

“Hmm…” Hit hummed lightly, his expression unchanging even as the tidal wave of nostalgia from looking out over his ‘true home’ swept over him. “Tell me, what did you mean before, when you said that ‘most’ of those doors were safe to walk through?” He couldn’t help but ask, feeling his cautious nature come over him. Something that had been ingrained into him since his very first assassination contract was given to him. As someone with the profession he’d had before, it was always wise to know about the location you were going to, in case things ended up going awry in some way during the hit. Even with his time-skip ability, it was never wise to rule out the possibility of being caught unaware by something you had no knowledge of.

No matter where he was sent to, so long as his memories remained, as did his training, there was no way he was ever leaving things to chance if he could help it. His final battle against Jiren in the Tournament of Power being a prime example of that.

Hearing him loud and clear, the Earl chuckled as he placed the bud of his umbrella on the ground out in front of him in a sort of gentlemanly fashion. “To tell you the truth, some of the doors down in the city don’t actually connect to any of the pathways just yet, so if you happen to step through them on accident, you’ll end up plummeting into the abyss~.”

Hit had to actually blink in slight dumbfoundment at the nonchalance the Earl maintained as he said that, as though having certain doorways within your own _home_ that were essentially death traps wasn’t of any real concern. He was either a fool for finding such a thing amusing rather than something to be taken care of, or an eccentric who’d allowed that to happen by design just for a laugh. Almost like a fun house where the only one who got the joke was him.

Personally, he didn’t know which of those was worse…

“Are you worried about falling down one of them, Hit?” Road asked by his side rather cheekily, with about as much care over such a thing as he turned to look at her, as the Earl had. Which was to say, none at all. Instead, it almost sounded like she was trying to have a mocking joke at his expense because he was actually concerned about such a fault.

That honestly annoyed him somewhat inwardly, though he didn’t let it show. Of course, he had some worry over that, because how was he supposed to know which was like that and which one wasn’t? He didn’t have the kind of power or abilities he used to have, which meant if he made a mistake and walked through the wrong door, as the Earl had put it, he would literally plummet into the abyss of this dimensional space. And since he didn’t have any dimensional travel abilities that he was aware of after his ‘transformation’, or the power to break out of a dimension through sheer force, if he did fall, he’d literally be stuck down there without any chance of being able to get back up until someone came along to save his ass, provided he didn’t just fade out of existence or die during that time.

Suddenly, he found his head being pulled rather forcefully sideways directly into a certain gothic-looking girl’s chest as her lithe arms circled around it. His eyes flashed up to Road’s face, who was only about four or so inches taller than him naturally, as she flashed him a girlish grin. “If you are, then don’t be, because your new big sister Road will be here to help you out. So long as you stick by me, I’ll make sure that never happens.”

Hit visibly cringed once again at the overly affectionate, touchy-feely contact Road was subjecting him. Once again, this was neither something he was used to, nor did he appreciate. Even worse was that he still felt a little too weak to force himself away from her, so for now, he literally had no choice but to push through it. _Such a troublesome girl…_

“Heh! Well now, Road, that’s very thoughtful of you to volunteer to help out our newest family member. Since there doesn’t seem to be any objection from Hit over that, I’ll put you in charge and gladly leave the honour of getting our brother acclimated to his new home up to you~.”

Upon hearing this decision by his new family’s ‘patriarch’, Hit could only sigh at his misfortune, while Road squealed jubilantly at the Earl ‘s words. “Thanks so much, Lord Millennium! You’re the best!” She said joyously like a child at Christmas day that had just been given the present they’d been waiting for, as she Pulled the side of his head even deeper into her chest in an almost vice-like grip that likely would’ve popped a fully grown watermelon with the amount of pressure she was putting on his cranium. “You hear that Hit? Now we’ll get to spend even _more_ time together when you’re not playing games with me. Isn’t that _great_?”

Yeah… _great_ … he could already feel the joy at such a prospect practically _oozing_ out of him this very second…

Also, when the hell did he ever agree to play _any_ games with her? Forget what he thought, it appeared she’d already decided they’d be playing some childish games together, and he got the feeling he wasn’t really going to be able to get any word in edgewise on that.

“Anyway, lets continue on, there’s still plenty of places to see~.” The Earl commented candidly with a sweet-sounding tone, as he started strutting back towards the door they’d come through. Road, still giggling to herself at the prospect of being ‘in charge’ of her new little brother, disentangled her arms from around him and quickly grabbed his hand again before hauling him along to follow the Earl.

“Would you mind letting me go, already?” Hit finally asked of the girl as they all made it back into the dark space inside the doorway. He could certainly walk around on his own by now, and sure as hell neither needed her pulling him around like a hapless child, nor did he want it either. “I can follow just fine without your help, Road.”

“Hmm? Are you sure about that, Hit?” Road asked, turning her head to look back at him with her best attempt at a cutesy, disarming smile as they continued walking, her grip on his hand only getting stronger. “Wouldn’t it be better if we continued holding hands like this? I mean, isn’t this one of the things siblings are _supposed_ to do with each other when bonding together?”

Hit couldn’t help but sigh at Road’s forwardness. His previous thought about her being troublesome only intensifying. “Look, I’m really not…” He had to pause as soon as he saw the expression that now adorned Road’s face. Her cutesy look having morphed in an instant to an expression befitting that of a wounded puppy, with her eyes seeming to puff out and lips downturned into a sad frown. “What are you doing?”

“Are you saying you don’t _want_ to bond with me…?” As if on cue, her bottom lip started to quiver, only intensifying the wounded puppy look she was sporting. The girl all but ignoring his latest words. “That’s it, isn’t it…?” She said much more softly, her voice even beginning to quiver near the end.

A part of Hit on the inside felt a pang of guilt for possibly distressing his new sibling like this, but the former hitman buried such an emotion as soon as it tried to rise up. Instead, his facial expression became a deadpan that was a solid as stone, for he was no fool. He’d give her credit for the effort and putting it all on so expertly, but he was far too perceptive an individual to not notice just how played out her current mood was. “You can cut the act, Road. I’m not buying it.”

“What act?” She tried to feign ignorance, keeping up her downtrodden expression, puffed eyes looking to water at the edges as though she were about to cry, as her bottom lip quivered ever more.

Hit didn’t buy the blatant manipulation even for a nano-second. “Just let go of my hand, already…”

Less than a second after that had left his mouth, and it became clear to Road he wasn’t budging, her battered puppy look fell even quicker than it had appeared. Replaced by a heavy, disappointed and unenthused pout from the early teen-appearing girl. “Fine…” She said, whilst removing her hand from his and allowing him to walk on his own.

Hit could hear the Earl chuckling to himself at the scene and found him gazing back at the two of them with an amused, mirthful look in his eyes.

_Yep. That’s definitely Toraido’s reincarnation alright._ The Earl thought to himself, feeling his ever-wide grin grow just a smidge more watching the boy. _Of course, knowing Road, she’s not going to let her new little brother off that easily, hehe! _She’d get her way one way or another. The boy could deny her now, but she’d find a way to whittle him down and get him to do what she wanted sooner or later. If there was one thing he knew Road to have a knack for within the family, which he’d seen all too well in the previous generation of Noah, it was her ability to ware her fellow siblings down over time when she wanted something. And if right now she wanted to be bonding with Hit in her own way, then come heaven to earth, that is exactly what she would get, even if he didn’t.

Thinking about all the hijinks Road would likely get herself up to with her younger brother in the future however, got him back to thinking about _him_. And as soon as he did, his mood turned sour yet again as he looked away from the two and did his best to force back the tears that threatened to spill out of his eyes then and there as the face of a certain brother of his formed in his mind. Something he had to diligently do his best to force away, as he felt the trauma of the incident that wayward brother of his had caused just over fifteen years ago, when he performed the ultimate betrayal against himself and the family, and slaughtered all but he and Road...

No… he couldn’t… _shouldn’t_ allow himself to think about that traitor anymore. And yet, that was so much harder to do than it should’ve been. Because for all the hurt and betrayal he felt, he couldn’t get rid of that longing to see him again, even in spite of that…

Shaking his head to rid himself of the melancholy before it could consume him again, as it had done for the last fifteen years or so. Today was a day of great joy, after all! He and Road finally had a member of the family return and were showing him around. Things were finally on the uptick, and could only get better from here, surely.

Then again, when it came to his new brother, there was something that… well, he wouldn’t say concerned him, but more intrigued him than anything else. Every time he looked at Hit, he could easily sense the memory of the Judge, their family’s second disciple with him. What befuddled him however, was that it didn’t feel the same as it had for all of the other incarnations, where it was more of the human host on the inside, whereas on the inside, their inner Noah could be felt influencing them. Just looking at Hit, it honestly felt like he was looking directly at _Toraido_ himself in full control without the middleman that was the host. Something that was downright bizarre, given he could tell even from their first interaction that despite their similar personas, that that was definitely _not_ Toraido at all. And yet, Hit felt every bit like him, and the feeling he got around him was the exact same feeling he got whenever the inner Noah took full control and consumed their host.

Just how was that exactly? He felt he knew what the answer was, no matter how improbable it should’ve been, and he wasn’t sure how to take it if it was the case.

_Best not to think about that. What matters is that one of our family is back. That’s always the most important thing~._

With that thought out of the way, the Earl soldiered on in showing his new brother around. Intent to simply have a good time in the presence of the first of plenty more to eventually return to him, and he could hardly wait!

_Roughly around an hour or so later…_

Hit had done what he could to utterly ignore the pouty look Road had continued to give him since they’d stopped holding hands like a child that felt they’d been wronged. If she thought she could sucker him in with guilt tripping, she had another thing coming. To be fair to her though, she did look somewhat adorable with that expression on, and had he been a normal ten-year-old… well, as normal as one could given what he’d become, then he was pretty sure he would’ve fallen for her façade hook, line and sinker.

Oh, he didn’t doubt she wanted to bond with him, or that him not wanting to hold hands with her like a baby brother being led by his older sister had made her feel some dismay. It was just the _level_ of how personally she’d made it out that she’d taken his rejection that was beyond fake, and they both knew it. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, she still had full jurisdiction over him thanks to the Earl, so she’d still no doubt be forcing him into playing whatever games she wanted in the future, which he wasn’t looking forward to at all.

Regardless, the tour itself went by fairly quick, for the most part. They had ended up in various places such as a rocky terrain with a starry sky background, to a large library, to numerous rooms that looked like they’d been ripped straight out of someone’s apartment, to a living room with an unlit fireplace at the centre of the far wall and so on.

All the while, the Earl would comment animatedly about the specific uses each room saw for their family in the past, as though he were reliving a memory with each instance, like how most of the family would occasionally meet up in the living room around the lit fireplace to relax and chat about their goings on, to some of the Noahs of the past using the rocky terrain filled room as a space for training themselves for combat against their enemies, who the Earl had revealed were called exorcists. The ones baring the same weapons powered by the substance he’d seen in his dream, and that new part of him had hissed within his dreams at with all the venom it could muster. The Millennium Earl was no different, speaking of Innocence in much the same hateful manner that he inwardly felt for it, even though he had yet to actually encounter it in person.

Regardless, as fast as it seemed to go for him, it honestly could’ve gone by in about half the time had the Earl not started reminiscing in just about every room they visited about memories past with previous incarnations of the family. The more it went on, the more he started to sound like some sort of uncle who loved looking back on the ‘good old days’ with a great fondness. Hit wasn’t about to really fault him for that though, as each of those stories did give him some form of an idea about what most of the rest of the family that would awaken in the future would be like. At least to a degree, anyway. All whilst not saying a word himself, as he didn’t see a need to, because as numerous as the stories were, they at least didn’t drag on forever.

He also found out during then that Road was the ninth disciple, representing the _Dream_ of Noah as opposed to the Judge that he represented. Since he was referred to as the first of his generation, it wasn’t hard for him to piece together that Road was a carryover in a sense from the previous Noah generation. Something that once again piqued his interest, since if she was still around from then, then what happened to the others? He’d have assumed it had something to do with the exorcists and their Innocence, but he got an immediate feeling that was far from the case. If he had to guess, it more than likely linked into what she was speaking about earlier after the Earl’s momentary lapse into melancholy. Something that given the Earl’s words sounded like it could’ve been an issue from within the family itself, which would certainly explain the befuddling emotions he’d felt on the subject.

Getting away from that for the time being, the latest room at the tail end of the tour, brought them before a massive, translucent blue egg. The massive egg was mounted on a great golden pedestal and hanging from a flower-shaped attachment on the top. The egg itself seemed to be _breathing_ in a sense, and the former infamously known assassin could feel a _pulse_ coming from it even from a good distance. Like some sort of heartbeat while in their presence. To add to this bemusing scene not only around the suspended egg were numerous robed, _live_ skeletons that the Earl referred to as the ‘Skulls’. Sufficed to say, Hit was briefly taken off-guard by both of these things. He recovered almost instantly though without anyone really noticing, as in comparison to what he’d seen in the wider cosmos of his previous universe, a created race of apparently magic using skeleton men wasn’t all that off-putting. Nor was a huge egg that pulsed darkly with life and breathed like some sort of eldritch creature was within.

“Lord Millennium.” One of the Skulls greeted with a deep-sounding voice, as it and the other skeletal figures bowed respectfully. Almost numbering thirty in total. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“At ease. A new member of the family has joined myself and Road today, as you can see~.” The Earl replied in his typical chipper and polite manner, motioning somewhat excitedly to him and briefly bringing the Skulls attention to Hit. “We’ve been showing him around his new home for the last while, and I felt it prudent to bring him here last and show him my finest work~.”

“Ah, I understand.” The Skull nodded understandingly. His unfilled eye-sockets zoned in on him as a weird, bony smile etched over his skeletal face. “It is good to make your acquaintance, young master. We shall leave you to it.” It said with another quick bow, before the group of skeleton men dispersed.

“The Skulls are also creations of mine and a fellow member of the family, who’s sadly not with us at the moment.” The Earl piped up, looking down his shoulder at him. “In case you were wondering.”

Hit merely nodded his head in acknowledgement. Not really having anything to say that hadn’t already been said on the matter. Outside of that quick greeting, the Earl then pressed on and motioned towards the egg itself with a look of pride in his eyes.

“And this, my dear boy, is where most of the magic happens~.” The Earl explained jovially with a flamboyant and rather unnecessary motion of his hands like he was getting ready to jerk the curtains on a play. Stepping out before both he and Road and giving his back to the egg behind him. “This bad boy right here is my Akuma egg. It’s made entirely out of my own Dark Matter and is helped function and be protected by my own personal magic incantations. I created it many years ago to help with the production of Akuma. For you see, things used to be quite slow before I made it. And thanks to it, I’m able to create the Akuma that you’ve already seen a bit of yourself on mass! With it, there will never be a shortage of Akuma for me or the rest of you to command in our crusade against the exorcists and their vile Innocence~!”

_So, he basically has his own ever-expanding army of demons to do his bidding, huh?_ And not only that, but if what happened to his mother was any clue, they were created from turning living people into them, which meant that theoretically, so long as humanity continued to grow and reproduce, the Earl could never run out of Akuma. The way in which he went about transforming them into said Akuma was something he wasn’t privy to, but that honestly didn’t matter, as he didn’t care to know. What did was that the Earl effectively had a nigh-endless supply of these robotic-like demons to use at his leisure. The perfect, loyal army to fight on his behalf. Add in him, Road, and the soon to be resurrected family members, and he had to wonder what exactly their enemies were supposed to have that could challenge such a front.

“Do you have any questions, Hit?” The Earl asked him suddenly, bringing him out of his own thoughts and his attention directly to him. “I know all of this should be a lot to take in in a single day, but feel free to ask me anything if you need some clarification. I really don’t mind~.”

He had several questions, really. One of which, according to Road, shouldn’t be brought up around him. That being the case, since the rest were interconnected, it was best to just get this out of the way.

“What exactly is our endgame?” Hit asked calmly and succinctly, getting straight to the point. Even without the new part of him this time, he had a feeling he knew what the answer was already, but he wanted to hear it from the Millennium Earl’s mouth himself.

“Our endgame?” The Earl parroted, not showing even a hint of surprise at that being the first question he thought of. That alone told him that this was far from the first time someone reincarnated into the family had asked such a thing. “Well that’s simple, really.” His ever-present grin managed to broaden. “To rid the world of Innocence by destroying the heart, wherever it may be hiding, and then bring about the three days of darkness once more~.”

_So that is the plan…_ Not to say he was against doing such a thing, as he was pretty sure the body count he’d had by the end of his run as his universe’s, and perhaps even _multiverse’s_ greatest assassin was just as vast as the population of this universe’s planet Earth. Even still though, he’d like to know if there was a reason for it. “While I can understand wanting to rid the world of Innocence, since it appears to be our mortal enemy, for what reason do we need to end the world again? I’m afraid I’m a little confused as to why the original Noah family would’ve bothered to repopulate the next human race if we were just going to end up killing them off again.”

Yet again, the Earl didn’t seem perturbed in the least by his question, or confusion at the original Noahs actions. He simply nodded his head in understanding, like that of a well-mannered gentlemen. “A perfectly reasonable thing to ask, Hit. I can see why that might have caused some confusion for you~.”

“It was done to be by Lord Millennium’s side.” Road cut in, stepping out before them both as his gaze flew to her. Her face no longer pouting like a spoiled child that felt they’d been wronged. Instead, she sported a remarkably tender, familial smile as she outstretched her arms and hugged the Earl’s massive belly from the side. Something that he didn’t seem to mind, if the way he looked down at her fondly was any indication. “The original Noahs didn’t want to leave him on his own to fight against the Innocence. So, they brought about the second generation of humanity, all so they could continue to come back again and again to fight by his side. As they say, a true family _never_ leaves each other behind. Isn’t that right, Lord Millennium?”

“Hehe!” The Earl laughed heartily, swinging one arm around for a one-armed hug. The one with the hand holding his umbrella. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Road~.”

_They brought back humanity from extinction… just so they could continue to fight by his side through reincarnation and ensure the destruction of Innocence…?_ Hit thought to himself, feeling genuinely stunned for a bit at the sheer level of loyalty it took to go that far just to help someone you cared about. It was rare that something managed to baffle him like this. And _this_ was the family he was now apart of in this reality? Talk about a complicated affair…

“Hit, my dear child, come here~!” The Earl called to him, outstretching his other free arm towards him. Giving him a look akin to that of a doting uncle.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Hit saw the offer for a hug amongst the three of them. Regardless of current revelations, or the fact that they were ‘family’ now, just the thought alone of that made him cringe. Being the loner he’d been for many centuries before this life, after all, he didn’t jell well with stuff like that. “Yeah… I think I’ll pass…” Hit declined in an almost deadpan fashion, taking a step back as he made to turn around. The former legendary hitman wanting absolutely nothing to do with some silly group hug.

“Aww… don’t be like that~!” Reaching out before he could get too far away, the Earl somehow managed to grab on to his shoulder and pull him in in the blink of an eye. Mushing the side of Hit’s boyish face into his cartoonishly rotund belly as his other arm quickly circled around him. Hit could feel his non-smothered eye twitching in agitation, as the Millennium Earl hugged him close enough to bring him and Road mere inches apart from one another. A joyful giggle erupting out of the petite, spiky-haired girl as she wasted little time stretching the arm that circled over the Earl’s front around him as well. An act that only made him even more uncomfortable, as yet again, he’d never been one for such affectionate contact. Though even if the Earl and Road could tell this wasn’t his thing, neither seemed to care. “Haha! There we go! A lovely little hug between family, isn’t that right, you two~?”

“Nngh…” An annoyed grumble was all that came out of Hit, whilst Road nodded her head happily in agreement.

“Good, good. The tour’s over now, so how about the three of us all go for a lovely dinner to commemorate Hit’s awakening~?”

“You know I’m up for it!” Was Road’s reply, as her gaze fluttered over to him then. “And then, once that’s done, me and Hit can play together! Oh man, with all the games I have for us to play, it’s going to be so much fun!”

As she and the Earl shared another laugh at that, Hit couldn’t help the feeling of resignation that struck him then.

For better or worse, this was his life now.

At the very least though… he could certainly tell he wasn’t going to be bored with these two in his life anytime soon…

**AND CUT!**

**Well, that’s the end of that one! Certainly took longer than I expected it to, but I think it came out well enough.**

**Hope you all enjoyed it, even if it was exposition heavy.**

**Anyways, again, hope you all got some enjoyment out of this, and I’ll see you all on the next one!**


	6. Family Time and Training

**Quick AN up above here, for those who read D. Gray Man and are caught up, as well as those who aren’t. Hit will be taking his first test drive of his own Noah ability in this chapter. To my knowledge, Hoshino hasn’t stated in either the guides/logs or the series itself what Toraido’s Noah ability is just yet. This will be just my fairest guess at what it could be, and I’ll run with it from there. If Hoshino tells us what the ability really is in the future and it turns out I have it completely wrong, then oh well. No skin off my back, because I’m not going to change it. Too much work, especially if its radically different from what I’m about to show.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter!**

**Noah’s Hitman:**

**Chapter 6: Family Time and Training.**

_That same day… After dinner…_

“Ahh~.” The Earl belched in satisfaction, dabbing a napkin upon his freakishly large maw whilst sat down at the head of a rectangular table big enough to fit twelve people at maximum capacity. It came with a fancy white tablecloth on top, along with a few oddly shaped candles placed around it. All of which were dimly lit to provide a serene atmosphere for the room they found themselves in. Numerous paintings dotting the dark bluish-grey walls on either side of him. An empty plate with a small bit of lime and ginger sauce left over just beneath him. “Pardon me. That was scrumptious~.”

“Hmm!” Road nodded enthusiastically as she stretched one arm over her head, until she got a satisfying _pop!_ Her lips upturned in a grin as she looked over from across her fancy, but comfy black and red seat on the left side of the table to the one her new little brother sat on closest to the corner, and by extension, the Earl. “How was that, Hit? It was good, right?”

Hit simply nodded his head in agreement, not having much to add on to that, as an Akuma maid stepped forward and picked up his empty plate from the table. As did two others for Road’s and The Earl’s at the same time.

The food had certainly been of a far higher standard than what he’d been eating whilst living with his parents of this world, for sure. These Akuma weren’t just designed for combating and helping them against the side of the exorcists, it seemed. Quite a number of them got trained – or perhaps programmed was the better word – to wait on them hand and foot as well, including cooking high-quality meals that you could only really find elsewhere in four-to-five-star restaurants. He knew this because the only time he’d tasted food this good back in Universe 6 was when he’d taken the time out between contracts to eat at such high-end establishments on other worlds.

“So, anyone ready for Dessert?” The Earl offered, as his own was placed in front of him. An ice-cream sundae filled up over the glass with several cherries dotted around the top, and a dark-chocolate sauce drizzled over it.

Road hummed in delight. “Mhmm! An ice-cream sundae this time! You like ice-cream, Hit?” She asked, gazing over to him again.

Hit just shrugged wordlessly. He was pretty neutral on the frosty treat. He’d had something similar before, and he couldn’t really say he liked or disliked it in anyway.

“You have any personal preference? We’ve got just about every flavour of ice-cream in stock, along with whatever topping you may prefer, so feel free to take your pick~.” The Earl told him jovially, as an Akuma brought Road hers, which was the same as his.

“It’s fine, Lord Millennium. I don’t really mind whatever you give me.” Hit replied evenly and politely. He could go without it, if he was being honest. That chicken dinner with whatever that sauce was had filled him up good enough.

“Teehee!” he heard Road giggle sweetly. “If that’s the case,” And shortly afterward he found a spoonful of ice-cream with liquid chocolate being shoved up near his lips. “say ‘aah’ Hit~!”

Hit glanced over at Road, who was leaned over the table with an expectant grin, with one of the _flattest_ stares he could muster. “What are you-mmph!?”

“Sharing my ice-cream with you silly~. Duh!” Road giggled again after shoving the spoon into his mouth when she saw her opportunity, pushing her glass of ice-cream across the table so it was in-between them. “Tasty, isn’t it?”

Hit went from staring flatly to partially glaring at her, after he’d swallowed the ice-cream and she pulled the spoon out. “I never asked you to do that. Don’t ju-mmph!?” He was cut off by yet _another_ spoonful driving its way into his mouth mid-sentence, courtesy of Road.

“Oh, stop complaining and just enjoy it. It’s not going to kill you or anything, is it?” She teased.

Hit scoffed at this, glaring a little harder this time as he heard the Earl chuckle heartily next to him. All while Road, without a care in the world, smiling innocently at him like she hadn’t just forced it into his mouth without his approval, took the same spoon she’d driven into his mouth twice now and dug it into her sundae for a taste herself.

“Mmm~! This tastes _so_ good, Lord Millennium.” She complimented whilst utterly ignoring the light – by Hit’s standards – glare that the ‘younger’ Noah was giving her.

“Hehe, that’s good to hear, Road~.” The Earl replied happily while taking a spoonful himself into his giant maw. “And how are you finding the dessert, Hit~?”

Taking note that Road wasn’t going to try and shove another spoon in his mouth just yet, Hit let out a small sigh, as his glare receded. Though he never took his eyes off the troublesome ‘sister’ of his. “It’s fine, I guess. Though I’d prefer it if I could feed _myself_ rather than being babied.”

“Aww, but it’s a big sister’s duty to feed their baby brother!” Road argued childishly, already scooping up another spoonful, which he had no doubt was intended for him.

“Yeah, when they’re a _baby._ ” Hit countered back with a flat tone, eyeing her hand holding the spoon like a hawk with one eye, while keeping the other trained on her face. “Do I look like a baby to you?” He scoffed. “What’s next? Are you going to make me sit on your lap like a two-year-old?”

It took all of about a second for the once legendary assassin to realize that’d been the _wrong_ thing to ask, as he saw the unnervingly _sweet_ smile that Road gave him. He saw her slide out of her chair, and his eyes narrowed sharply. Alarm bells beginning to ring in his head, as both eyes shot up to her face with a pointed glare. “Don’t you dar-mmph!?”

“Teehee! Got ya!” Road giggled with glee after shoving the third spoon into his mouth, cutting him off. From there, in a timeframe so fast you could’ve _blinked_ and missed it, she managed to somehow hook her arms underneath his own, and before he could react, _lift_ him off the chair without much effort surprisingly. Before the former hitman of the sixth universe could fully regain his bearings, Road had already returned to her own seat, plopping her ass down on it and placing _his_ down on her lap.

Hit didn’t even have the chance to spit the spoon out before she retrieved it from his lips at lightning-fast speeds and circled one arm around his waist to keep him locked in place. She even managed to lock down his arms to his sides as well, and he could feel the backs of her legs coiling around his shins to keep them in place too.

The purple-haired Noah boy heard the Earl laughing again at his predicament from the front of the table. He heard Road giggling again as well, this time close to his ear as she propped her chin up on his shoulder. “That was a _great_ idea, _baby_ brother!” She said as though it had been a suggestion to her that she giddily accepted, stressing the word ‘baby’ there just to emphasise his place to him in her mind. He also got the feeling based off her tone, that she said it that way just to further tease and annoy him. “How does it feel? I’ll bet you just _love_ getting to sit on your big sister Road’s lap as she feeds you, huh?”

Hit’s right eye twitched vigorously as he felt aggravation beginning to bubble within him. His eyes gazing behind him to glare at Road, which clearly had no effect on the girl whatsoever. “Road, let me-mmph!?”

“Shush.” Road halted him with another damned spoonful of ice-cream that fell down his throat too quickly for him to spit out. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything, baby brother. I know you love it~.” She told him in an almost sing-song like tone what had to be one of the falsest things he’d ever heard. “You’re so lucky, you know?” The spoon came out of his mouth, scooping up another bit of the ice-cold, creamy dessert. This time with a cherry to go along with it. “Not everyone gets to have a cool big sister like me, after all. Now open wide, because here comes the train~!”

Hit saw the spoon coming almost like it was something that would burn him. He tried to fidget his way out of Road’s damnable iron-like grip to no avail, detesting the situation he was right now with growing passion. He looked towards the Earl, in a somewhat vain hope that the cartoonishly rotund, Victorian caricature would’ve had his fun by now watching this debacle and help put a stop to this absurd charade.

No such luck for him there. The Earl didn’t look in any mood to put a stop to this. If anything, he looked _encouraging_ of it. Like a proud, goofy father watching his children play around. The fat fool even had the nerve to give him a thumbs up!

“Remember to say ‘ahh’, my boy. It’s good table manners~!” The goblin-looking being advised him with his jovial air, which Road hummed into his ear happily in agreement.

“He’s right, you know. Remember to say ‘ahh’, Hit~!” The girl then jabbed two fingers into his side when she was certain he wouldn’t open his mouth. Doing it just hard enough to elicit the quick response she was looking for.

“Ahh-mmph!?” A very short gasp of surprise was brought out of him, followed by her shoving the cherry-topped spoonful into his waiting gullet. Road giggled girlishly as she placed the spoon on the table and brought her hand up to his cheeks.

“That’s the stuff! Now remember to chew the cherry Hit, because they’re juicy and delicious!” As if to add insult to injury, and then proceed to pour _salt_ on said wound, Road grabbed his cheek and chin like he was a small baby still learning how to chew. She then forced his mouth to make chewing motions with her hand to ensure he ate the cherry the way she wanted him to, as if he was incapable of doing it himself.

“There, now wasn’t that good?” She asked the instant it was all swallowed down his throat.

Forget aggravated. Hit was silently fuming at this point, especially when Road didn’t bother waiting for an answer, and started rubbing his head with her free hand like it was no-one’s business. Petting him like he was her own personal property and messing up his purple locks with a level of ‘sisterly’ possessiveness that nearly made him growl with frustration.

He stayed the urge to however, knowing she’d only find a way to use it as ammo for herself to tease and annoy him further. And have a blast while doing it. Troublesome didn’t even _begin_ to describe her at this point. Even his elimination at Jiren’s hands during the Tournament of Power hadn’t felt this humiliating for him.

Hit instead settled for glaring ferociously at the wall across from him, eyes set with a fire in them that looked like they were trying to bore a hole straight through it.

So, imagine his surprise, when that’s _exactly_ what happened not a few seconds later. As the entire section of the wall his eyes had been so focused on glaring into oblivion suddenly broke down before his gaze. Doing so rather unnaturally as the entire section gained a purple hue and formed a large, five-foot wide and six-foot tall hole in the wall. Purple sparks of what he could tell was Dark Matter energy seeming to fly off it as it, making a fairly loud _bang_ sound to go along with it.

The Akuma maids present didn’t even react to what’d just happened, remaining on standby. The Earl and Road paused at such an occurrence. With both of them taking a glance over at the massive hole now punctuating the wall, with small bits of debris falling to the floor. However, neither were as taken aback as he was momentarily by such a thing occurring. Though a silence did pervade over the room for a few noticeable seconds.

“Ohoh! Well then,” The Earl hooted, drawing Hit’s attention right to him. “Looks like you’ve started to use your power already, Hit. That’s splendid~.” He praised as his ever-present smile widened jubilantly.

His power? He hadn’t even been trying to do anything there, really. How exactly _had_ he just done that?

“Oh wow! This soon?” Road seemed somewhat amazed by this. “It took me at least a day to call upon mine for the first time.” She revealed, before _snuggling_ into him excitedly, making Hit both cringe and wince at the same time. He could feel how Road’s grip became _twice_ as tight around his waist, constricting around it like some sort of snake. Something that was both painful and making it harder for him to breathe. “That’s so cool, baby brother! You’re already a natural! Who’s a good boy?” She cooed at him proudly like he was a pet that just did a trick for her. “Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” She cooed even more. All while she nuzzled herself into his neck and shoulder without a care for how uncomfortable that may have made him, as she was happy doing it. Using him like he was her own personal body pillow.

That thought alone only made him cringe harder. Had the Grand Priest lied to him all along, and instead of giving him a second chance, they’d decided to be sadistic by sending him to his own personal hell? Because right now, with how much Road was snuggling into him like a teddy bear, it damn sure felt like it!

“Hehe, I know this might seem a little fast Hit,” The Earl began, steepling his hands together whilst gazing at the younger Noah. “but given that display you just gave us, what do you say to giving your ability a proper _test-drive_ tomorrow~?” He asked, sounding utterly thrilled at his own idea.

“That’d be fine…” Hit almost wheezed out. Damnit, would this girl just let go of him already? Or at the very least, just loosen her grip? If she held him any harder, he’d most likely start suffocating. “I’d already been thinking of testing out what I could do myself, anyway…”

“Ho? Have you now?” The Earl seemed quite pleased by that response. “Well, I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. Given your age, it’s understandable you’d want to see all the cool new stuff you can do~.” The Earl had no idea how right he was there for the wrong reasons. The patriarch taking it as a childish desire to want to see all the ‘cool’ new things he’d be capable of. Rather than as a millennium old hitman in the body of a child who was curious to find out what he was now capable of, now that he’d become something more than a simple human. At least in terms of physiology. “In any case, I’m glad to hear it. I’ll have Road fetch you in the morning and bring you to one of our specialised rooms for training, then. Say around ten, if that suits~?”

Road caught on immediately that that last part was aimed at her. “Sure thing, Lord Millennium. That sounds perfect, hehe!” She giggled with glee as she started rocking – yes, _rocking_ – back and forth in her large seat whilst still clinging to him. Which meant _he_ was rocking with her as a consequence. “I can’t wait to see how you handle yourself tomorrow, Hit. Should be fun to watch!”

“That’s nice. Now, could you please let me go?” Hit asked, and he’d almost die before admitting that his voice was a hare’s breath away from sounding pleading at this point.

“Hmm… nope!” She declined with a tone sounding all too happy to dash such a hope. “We’ve still got to finish our ice-cream first, after all~.” She reminded him while giggling to herself at his expense. Petting his head once more before reaching out and grabbing the spoon, digging it into the remaining glass of ice-cream. Which still had plenty left to go. “Now get ready to open wide again!”

Another sigh left Hit’s lips. A defeated one. “If I eat it with you, will you finally let me go then?”

“Sure. So long as you eat it all up for big sister Road, okay?”

Having decided now that this was a battle he couldn’t win, the former legendary assassin relented. And as the spoonful of ice-cream came towards his lips, just this once, Hit chose to begrudgingly swallow his pride and go along with the bluish-purple haired girl’s antics. If only so she’d finally let him go. Opening his mouth wide with a far from enthusiastic ‘ahh’ to go along with it, as Road pushed yet another spoon of ice-cream into his gullet.

The only small upside was, at least it didn’t taste bad…

_The next day… early morning…_

“Wakey, wakey! Rise and shine, Hit!” Road’s humoured, annoying voice cut through the silence of Hit’s room, as she kicked the door to it open with excitement. The sound it made as it slammed into the wall with a _bang_ echoing around the room, and would’ve no doubt woke the ex-assassin of the sixth universe up, had he still been sleeping.

Hit, fully awake and already out of bed, garbed in pretty much the same outfit as yesterday, glanced over in annoyance at the short-statured girl for her unnecessary loudness and total lack of subtlety. Garbed in the same outfit she was yesterday, with that same grin plastered over her face from the previous day.

_Must she be this much of a pain to deal with…_ He’d liked to have hoped not, but after yesterday, there was no chance he’d make that mistake. _Still can’t believe I took her at her word yesterday._ He’d been such a fool. He’d made the classic blunder of giving her an inch in the hopes she’d take mercy for his willingness and let him go.

Of course, Road being Road, as he’d found out the hard way, had happily taken that inch and run a bloody mile with it. Asking for both seconds and even _thirds_ when it came to the ice-cream after they’d finished it. All so she could prolong his suffering even more and snuggle into him longer like her personal teddy bear on that blasted seat. ‘Bonding time’ she’d called it.

And of course, The Earl had fully supported and gone along with it with a hearty laugh. Because why the hell not? Apparently, making him as uncomfortable as possible was a fun thing to do for both of them.

What made it even worse, was that after Road _had_ finally let him go from her ‘cuddle’, the Earl had called an end to the day, and as he’d promised, let Road be the one to show him around. To start getting him acclimated more to the Ark, his new home, before bringing home back to his room. During that period where she showed him around, she’d ‘conveniently’ forgotten about him not wanting to hold hands with her and had wilfully ignored all of his protests he’d bothered to make this time. Whether they be silent or vocal, as she dragged him around the ark. Forcing him to play to her own tune whether he liked it or not, as she babbled on about stuff he quite frankly didn’t care about. Like her favourite candies and how much of it she loved to eat. All the games she loved playing and why she loved them, including some unpleasantly sadistic ones reserved for the enemy. Her other likes and dislikes whilst asking him his, which he’d had to begrudgingly answer at times to save himself from her incessantly prodding him annoyingly until he replied. And finally, her personal desire to get the ‘best’ doll she could for her collection, which she’d elaborated would be fashioned out of an exorcist. He almost pitied whoever that might end up being.

This had gone on, for almost three. Whole. _Hours._

Sufficed to say, by the time she’d finally led him back to his room, he’d taken it as a blessing that his torture was finally over. Even if just for that day. There was still plenty more to see, according to her. That and she was looking forward to playing some of her favourite games with him in the near future, likely starting today following his training session and before lunch. Hit might’ve had a mind to ask why there wasn’t going to be breakfast, but he was too mentally drained from having to deal with Road to give a damn. The Earl was probably too busy making new Akuma or something. It didn’t matter.

“Do you have to be so loud? As you can see, I’m already up…”

“Great!” She exclaimed cheerfully, completely ignoring his initial question as she quickly made her way over and grabbed his hand. “Then let’s head out. Wouldn’t want to keep Lord Millennium waiting!”

“You know I can follow you just fine, Road. I _really_ don’t need you to hold my hand all the way there…”

“But it feels so much _better_ doing it this way.” Road replied with an almost hurt pout at his suggestion, making him actively roll his eyes at her for looking at him like he was the bad guy. Her expression changed swiftly though, with a cheeky smile now adorning her features, as she started bringing him out of the room. “Now let’s stop wasting time complaining and get the ball rolling, hmm?”

Outside of a small grumble, Hit didn’t make much more of a fuss of her holding his hand this time, as she brought him out of his room and through a particular path down the hall. There just wasn’t a point. After how mentally taxed he’d been left the other day, he just decided it best not to try and refuse her touchy-feely nonsense. It simply just wasn’t worth the hassle once she already had him grabbed.

This girl truly was the definition of insufferable when she got going… And he didn’t appreciate the feeling of nostalgia that welled up inside of him from his Noah part at her antics. Then again, as much as he may not like the fact, he’d most likely have to get used to it, as they’d be living with each other from now on. A prospect that back in his Universe 6 days, he would’ve never even entertained.

A heart-shaped, red and black checkered door appeared seemingly out of nowhere before them. Bursting forth from the ground, whilst not damaging it at the same time, as though it’d come straight out of a portal.

“This is one of my doors, Hit.” She explained vaguely, Hit getting that same sense inwardly he knew what she meant by that before she elaborated. “They’re what I use to get around using my power of the Dream.”

Get around? What did she-

Road kicked the double-doors open, much like she had his bedroom door, and stepped through to the other side with him without wasting another second.

When the duo stepped through to the other side, Hit found himself in the room with the starry night sky and rocky terrain again. Numerous rock formations and cliffs dotted throughout. Not enough for them to act like a maze, but certainly enough to act as cover if needed.

“And here we are.” Road said matter-of-factly. “This is where you’ll be getting in some practise. Lord Millennium should be here with us shortly.”

Hit nodded at this, before turning his head curiously to look at the double-doors behind them. A purple, miasmic-like field covering the opening of the doorway and obscuring what was on the other side from view. A sudden feeling of irritation rising in him as the dots quickly started to connect into his head, as to what she’d meant by ‘get around’.

His eyes narrowed sharply. “Road. By getting around using that power of yours…”

“Hmm. Yeah?”

“By any chance, were you referring to _dimensional_ travel?” The answer seemed obvious the more he thought about it.

“Yep!” She acknowledged, looking back at her conjured door and pointing proudly at it. “I can connect my world of the dream to anywhere in the real world, or in one of Noah’s dimensions, and easily crossover to wherever I want just like that.” He saw her turn to him then, out of the corner of his eye, with an amused smile after clicking her fingers. “Pretty cool, huh?”

Hit paid no mind to the ‘world of the dream’ portion for now and zoned in entirely on the rest of it. His mood visibly turning a little more sour despite his best efforts to remain stoic. “You mean to tell me you had a way of getting us around quicker this whole _time_.” He turned to look at her fully, his vexation shining through his golden orbs. “And you didn’t bother to use it at all yesterday when showing me around, despite how much time you could’ve saved us?”

Without a hint of shame or remorse in her expression, Road just smiled plainly at him. As though he’d just asked her something silly. “But if I did that, I wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time with you, so we could get to know each other better, would I?”

Unbelievable…

That _would_ be her reasoning, wouldn’t it? If only she’d actually done so. He’d have taken the monotony of going through door after door and room after room in silence any day over that. “Could you at least use this for us next time?”

“Hmm…” Road looked to be putting some actual thought into that, as she clasped her hands together and placed them behind her head.

“Please…” Hit all but grounded out, his patience having reached its end already, and even his cool was beginning to slip just a little.

“Okay.” She finally replied after a moment, gaining a somewhat relieved sigh from the purple-haired man turned child. “But,” She continued, an all too happy smile on her lips as she looked at him pause. “To make up for it, we’ll have to play one of the games I’ve been itching to try with you. Sound fair?”

_Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple…_ Still, it had to be better than following her along for several hours as she babbled along and forced him to participate in meaningless banter. “Sure, fine. Whatever.”

“Great! We’ll play hide-and-seek then!” She hollered with joy.

Hide-and-seek, huh? Childish, yes, but that could at least afford him some solitary time to himself, away from her antics.

“And whoever wins, gets to have the other person do a favour for them. No matter what it is!”

Hit’s brow immediately furrowed. He didn’t like the sound of that one bit…

“So, if I win Hit, how do you feel about joining me for a tea party with my dolls?” She beamed with an all too confident air. Sounding thrilled at the idea alone.

Hit wasn’t even going to _deign_ that with a response…

Because it wouldn’t be happening. Ever.

“Ahh, good morning, both of you~!” The sound of the Earl’s cheery voice drew the attention of the duo as they turned towards the door again, watching as the rotund figure of said individual strolled through the doorway. His pumpkin themed umbrella held in hand and propped lazily on his shoulder. Ever-present grin still fixed in place on his large maw.

“Teehee! And to you as well, Lord Millennium.” Road greeted back happily, while Hit simply nodded his head in acknowledgement of his presence.

“So then,” He began, turning his full attention to the younger Noah of the two. “I assume you’re ready to go, Hit?”

Hit nodded back. Feeling the itch to get used to his new powers rise up. If they were to be the substitute in this world that he had to ki, he may as well get to mastering them as soon as possible. For the first time since he’d been here, though it hardly showed on his face, he felt genuine excitement bubble up.

The Earl must have somehow managed to feel it regardless, because he chuckled down at him. “Heh, I can see that look in your eyes clear as day. You’re raring to go. That’s good to see~.”

Road chose that moment to let go of his hand and step back to watch this all play out, as the Millennium Earl passed by and led Hit further down the rocky terrain away from her. Not too far away that she wouldn’t be able to easily see the action, though.

“About here should do~.” The Earl said merrily after a few moments, stopping them both a good distance away from Road and her door. “Right then,” He turned to Hit. “let’s get down to the basics first~.”

Basics. It was almost funny, really. For a moment, Hit felt like he was a child back in Universe 6 again about to be taught how to utilize his ki for the first time. He supposed, in a way, this would be a repeat of that to a degree, only with Dark Matter instead of ki.

“You were able to use your ability before, but that was just an accident, I’m sure. We’ll get to that in a bit. For now, we’ll focus on getting you to harness the Dark Matter inside of you and draw it out~.”

Hit nodded. A part of him wondering if what he had to do would be similar to how he harnessed ki. Because if so, then this would go by faster.

“I’ll keep this simple. To start, I want you to look inside yourself~.” The Earl started by pointing towards his own chest as an example. “Close your eyes if you have to and treat this like a form of meditation. While doing that, I want you to feel out for the Dark Matter within you. You’ll know you’re feeling it when you are, as the sensation it’ll bring you will be hard to miss.” He explained, which got another nod from the purple-haired Noah. “Then once you have a feel for it,” The Earl’s free hand came out, opening wide as if to hold something. From there, a dark purple sphere brimming with dark energy appeared over his palm. No bigger than a small soccer ball, but still full of plenty of destructive potential. “pull it to the surface~!”

Just then, the Millennium Earl launched the orb of energy off into the distance, where it detonated and created a controlled, but potent explosion that disintegrated all in its path. Covering a good few hundred square metres.

His grin managed to widen. “Like so~.”

_So, it is like ki, then._ Was Hit’s immediate though as he watched the explosion simmer down and fizzle away. That explanation had sounded so similar to what he’d been told of ki back in the day. Not the exact same, of course, but very close.

Good. That’d make things a lot simpler.

Closing his eyes as he’d done a very long time ago, Hit reached inward. Searching for the feeling of the new energy that was coursing through his very being at this minute. He wasn’t at all surprised when it didn’t take him long to find it. The sensation it brought, as the Earl had so dutifully said, being hard to miss. It felt like two things simultaneously. One, a white-hot burning force ready to eradicate all that was in its path, and the second, like a comforting blanket to him that felt like it gave an extra layer of warmth and protection. Quite the contrast there, but then again, he’d thought it’d be something like this. It felt wilder than his ki had, but also more alluring. He’d dare say even _intoxicating_.

Hit clenched a fist by his side, before curling his elbow and bringing his balled hand closer to his face, as a dark-purple light began to emit from it. Before long, the light became more pronounced, as he drew out the Dark Matter from within, and it began to coalesce around his balled fist in an almost translucent sphere of dark energy.

“Ohoh!” The Earl hollered, sounding quite impressed as Hit snapped his eyes open. Showing nothing less than complete control of the dark energy manifesting on and around his fist. “Good! Very good! You pulled that off a lot quicker than I thought you would. You truly are a natural at this, it seems~.”

Hit took the compliment for what it was and failed to keep a small smirk from appearing on his lips. As if out of instinct left over from his past days as an assassin, he reared his fist and swerved on his feet, pointing away from The Earl and in the same direction he’d thrown his energy ball earlier. His middle knuckle jutting itself out almost nostalgically, as he thrusted his fist forward.

Instead of the invisible wave of compressed energy he’d grown used to over hundreds of years however, a dark-purple beam of energy shot out of his fist. The energy beam rocketing forth into the distance and cutting its way through any cliffside and rock formation that got in its way like they were made out of warm, melting butter. Lighting up the area it passed in a purplish hue as it eviscerated all in its wake, before slamming into one final rock formation and detonating in identical fashion to the Earl’s. With an explosion equally as big being visible far off in the distance, before it too fizzled away.

Road, even from her fair distance away from them, could see it clearly, and gave an impressed whistle as she clasped her hands behind her back and watched on with intrigue.

Meanwhile, flashy was the first thing that came to Hit’s mind after his first attack was finished. Too flashy. He’d have to work on that in the future. Call it old habits dying hard, but he preferred something more subtle and focused, while being just as, if not more efficient than that.

“Hehe! Wonderful indeed! We’ve barely even begun, and you’ve already showed tremendous progress. Far more so than any other I can recall from recent memory. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were already quite experienced with this sort of thing~.” The Earl praised with an ecstatic air, his amber pools behind his glasses shining with amazement. He couldn’t even recall any time when an awakened Noah gained a grasp over their Dark Matter this swiftly. He’d seen it being controlled and used within an hour or two before, but within less than a minute? That was absurd! In a good way!

_You have no idea…_ Hit couldn’t help but think with no small amount of amusement inwardly, as the Millennium Earl locked his gaze down on him with the sort of pride one would usually reserve for their child.

“Right then, since you seem to have grasped that in record time, I guess we’ll just move on to your Noah ability~.”

“Right.” Hit nodded. More than ready to find out what it could be.

“Your ability, like every other one, is tied to your specific Noah memory.” The Earl explained somewhat seriously, though his jovial demeanour remained. “Yours being the memory of the Judge, that gives you the ability to, putting it bluntly, pass _judgment_ on what’s around you. Whether that be aspects of the physical world like inanimate objects, places and of course, _people_.” The Earl’s grin, again, somehow grew with manic glee.

“Pass judgment?” Hit gave the goblin-looking patriarch a confused look. “What do you mean by that?”

“Tell me, Hit. Are you aware of what a judge does in court?” The rotund head of the clan asked back pointedly, rather than straight up answer the question posed.

Hit decided to humour him still. “They are there to oversee the proceedings and pass down verdicts, whether it be for a civil or criminal case.”

“True, but that’s not all that they do. A judge can also pass and make, shall we say, _amendments_ to certain laws~.” He chuckled with mirth, as though he’d just spouted a funny inside joke.

Hit pondered that particular phrasing for a moment, attempting to decipher what the Earl was getting at with this. He thought back to what he’d done the other day without intending to. Forcing the wall in their dining room to have a sizeable hole bored through it. All just from his glare, and the momentary feeling of wanting to… bore a hole in the wall… due to his frustration with… Road…

The Earl saw Hit’s eyes beginning to widen in both shock and realization and couldn’t help the laugh that spilled out of him at the child’s expression. “I see its beginning to dawn on you now, isn’t it~?”

Rather than answer verbally, Hit’s head snapped towards another rock formation close by. His gaze zoning in on it as he focused his full attention towards it. His lone thought mirroring the feeling he’d had yesterday, as he made to project his will onto the rock formation.

A split-second later, just as it had happened yesterday with the wall, the centre of the rock formation broke down unnaturally with a purplish hue, as the familiar _bang_ went off with it. Unlike the wall however, the rock formation wasn’t wide enough to support the gaping hole that formed on it all of a sudden, and thus collapsed to the ground in a heap of rubble. A number of dark-purple particles of energy rising off it and into the air.

As if not totally convinced, Hit switched his gaze to another formation, locking it with his gaze and attempting to enforce his will upon it. Only this time, he thought of flattening it like a pancake just to see if it would work.

As if responding to him like its verdict was passed down, the entire rock formation gained a purple hue, before being crushed down under an oppressive force. Despite the fact that it _should’ve_ just shattered under the normal laws of physics, it obeyed his command instead, as though it was beholden to a different physical law than the others of its kind. Flattening out before his and the Earl’s eyes to the point where it near perfectly resembled a pancake on the ground.

Getting swept up, Hit decided unnecessarily to test it just a few more times, each with a different thought being enforced into it. From having a cliffside spontaneously combust, to forcing an entire formation to be reshaped into the likeness of a tree, to even having a large rock slab levitate off the ground like it was no one’s business. Completely disregarding gravity all-together.

“Having fun~?” The Earl cut in after watching this all patiently with some nostalgia. “Your ability is quite something, isn’t it? Even when just focused on a bunch of rocks, the possibilities of what you could make happen are near endless~.”

Hit remained silent for a moment as he fully came to terms with what his new ability unique to his Noah memory seemed to be.

“You have the ability to _judge_ all that is around you and enforce your will upon it. Essentially, you could say that all things in the physical world are quite literally part of your own personal playground that you are the sole owner of. Which means, whatever you enforce your will on, _you_ alone decide what law it is beholden to. Whether that be one that already exists, or one of your own making~.” The millennium’s old entity explained casually with an elated air.

Hit, for the first time in quite possibly his entire existence, felt his jaw become unhinged for a short period. Though not intending to, before the Earl’s gaze, he looked every bit the age his current body was with his gobsmacked expression that had the Earl giggling like a fool.

_That_ was his power…? It sounded absurd, even by the standards he was used to, with the kind of versatility that it offered. Not to mention the utterly insane kind of power it leant to him just going off of that description alone. Too much power. _There has to be a catch to this_. He decided quick, calming himself down rapidly, and snapping his jaw shut again. _There’s no way an ability like this wouldn’t come without some amount of limitations, otherwise it’d be unstoppable and incapable of being bested unless someone had a similar power._

“Of course, your ability isn’t completely without boundaries. It does have its limits, just like any other member of the family’s own~.” The Earl continued, as if reading his mind, confirming his suspicions. “For example, you can only focus in on one thing at a time by yourself. Along with that, certain things within the world are harder to enforce your will on than others and will require more effort and focus on your part to alter. Furthermore, there is one substance that, above all others, is highly resistant against your ability. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that retched substance is~.”

_Innocence_. The word sprang to mind immediately. Along with a visceral hatred down to his very core. Something that he wasn’t used to feeling for anything or anyone. “I assume that means those who wield Innocence will also be much harder to effect with this ability?”

“Yes~.” The Earl nodded. “Regardless of what type, provided they have it with them, exorcists will also be far more resistant due to their bond with their Innocence. The higher the bond, the more resistant they’ll be. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’ll be _ineffective_ on them. Goodness no. You’ll just have to enforce your will upon them even harder to overpower their resistance, that’s all~.”

Okay. That made sense. It sort of reminded him of his first time battling Son Goku during the tournament between their universes. How Goku had become more resistant against his time-skip as the battle progressed, and he’d had to enforce it on him even harder, which had led to him improving his time-skip’s duration and potency on the fly.

Hit felt a gloved hand on his head the next second, bringing his gaze straight to the Earl, who was now grinning down at him with care and pride. “Feel free to keep experimenting with your new powers for a few hours. There is one final aspect about your ability, but we can get to that tomorrow~.”

“Why’s that?” Hit felt the need to ask, ignoring the strange feeling of being comfortable with the Earl patting his head, as he shrugged away from his hand.

The Millennium Earl looked a bit disappointed by this, but otherwise paid it no mind. “Better for you to focus on getting used to all of this first, before we get to you using your blade~.”

_My blade…?_ He was going to have a blade as well…? For what? What did he need a sword for?

“If you’re wondering ‘why a sword’, don’t worry. I’ll explain it to you tomorrow in detail. Trust me when I say its better we focus on this today, and that tomorrow~.”

“For efficiency’s sake, is that it?” Hit guessed. It’d make sense, after all. They were hardly on a timer here, so why not break his practise down into two different sections for different days?

“Well, I guess you could say that’s true~.” The Earl chuckled, causing him to raise a brow in confusion.

“Are you telling me I’m wrong?” What other reason could there be other than that?

“No, no. What you said is accurate, it just wasn’t the main reason~.”

“Then what is?”

“Simple. If I just dumped the whole thing on you today, you’d be spending all day at it.” Was there meant to be a problem with that? Even if he was in a new body, he’d done day-long training sessions in his old life plenty of times before. It wouldn’t be an issue for him to get back into that routine if he had to. ”And if that happens, then you wouldn’t have any time or energy left to play with Road~.”

Hit stared at him flatly. “I fail to see how that’d be an issue, Earl.”

“Aww, don’t be like that now~.” The rotund being chided, going so far as to wag his finger at him like he was being bold. “While training your abilities is important, spending quality time with your new big sister is _just_ as important~.”

“Please tell me you’re joking…”

“I would never joke about matters regarding our family~.”

Hit pinched his eyes shut with his fingers, feeling exasperation starting to claw at him as the Earl laughed on merrily.

He could feel a migraine coming on…

**AND CUT!**

**Well that’s the end of this one. There should be more action in the next chapter, since quick spoiler here, Hit and the Earl are gonna have themselves a little spar, so I hope I write that well enough.**

**Also, just so you’re all aware, next chapter will be the longest yet, and will include everything I’ve set up in this chapter, which will include Road and Hit’s little game of hide-and-seek of course, and you’ll understand why when it comes out. Including the one after it, there’s only two chapters remaining that will have Hit as he is now. Following them, there will be a time-skip(pun absolutely intended) to a much older Hit as we get into other parts of D. Gray Man, like the awakening of a certain number of Noahs and such, so look forward to that.**

**Please be sure to review if you can. I don’t want to sound desperate, but its kind of disheartening when I upload and no one seems to review it, even if its just a sentence.**


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